“Nothing at all; I spent a month in trampin’ over the grounds. You know that part of the country isn’t very thick with white folks, and such as they be are hunters or trappers. I went to the forts, and every place, where I could find any of ’em, but never a word did I l’arn. When I fotched you away, I see’d that little rifle of yours hung up over your head, and knowin’ as it was meant for you, I fotched that too. I expected to l’arn something from that, ’cause you know thar ar’ two letters carved onto the stock--the letters ‘_H. R._’, and I s’posed by that means I’d git some track of the owner--but it wa’n’t any use, and I give it up at last. But what I want to ask my pet, is whether you can’t call up any thing _afore_ I come into the Injin lodge and took you away?” “You know how hard I’ve tried, and once or twice, it seems to me that I have succeeded. It is a dim picture of riding over a deep broad river, with a good many people in the boat, and it seems to me that some of them were of my own color, and I think, though you know that it is all guesswork, that my father and mother were among them; but the picture is so dim and faint that when I try to fix it in my mind it slips away again, and all is dark.” “Can’t you think of any thing else?--somethin’ different from that?” asked old Robsart, with the most intense interest. “Nothing beyond that; all is blank. Of course, I remember the several times that you left me at the fort, and the kind men there, who taught me how to read and a great many other things, but my memory is able to do no more. Sometime it may succeed better.” “Wal, I hope it will,” said Old Ruff, with a sigh; “it ’ud go hard with me to part with you, and I’d only do it fur your own good; but these woods ain’t the place to fetch up a younker like you. You’re smart ’nough, and handsome ’nough to desarve better things. Old Ruff has got a little pile of money stored away in one of the banks down in Fr’isco, and if your friends don’t turn up, afore the summer’s over, we’ll see what that can do fur you, my little pet.” “No matter what may happen in the future,” said Little Rifle, in an affectionate tone, “no matter where the rest of my life may be cast, or what good or evil fortune may befall me, I can never forget _you_, who rescued me from the savages, and have always been more than a father to me.” “That’s all right,” said the old hunter, hastily, and speaking as if he were swallowing something that kept rising in his throat, “that’s all right, and don’t say nothin’ more about it.” For a long time they conversed in this familiar manner, and then Little Rifle, as was always his practice, when with the hunter, kissed him affectionately, bade him good-night, and withdrew to his own apartment, which, it will be remembered, was at the other end of the lodge or cabin, where he was never disturbed or molested, during his sleeping hours.