“It will be better to leave the younker alone, at any rate, till I come back,” muttered the trapper, as he strode away. “Thar ain’t many o’ the varmints in these parts, and the way he got along yesterday shows that he knows how to take care of himself. Let him think, let him dream, and mebbe he’ll be able to work out the mystery that I can’t see head nor tail to. Thar’s a good deal in that handsome head of his’n, and he’ll pitch it out arter awhile.” Left to himself, the boy reclined in an easy position, with his head lying back upon the stern of the canoe, and his eyes looking directly upward at the sky, across which a few white feathery specks of clouds were now beginning to drift. The soft ripple of the stream, as it washed against the bank and around the little boat, the faint murmur of the forest, and, above all, the thoughts that had haunted him since the talk with the old hunter--all these conspired to throw a languid, dreamy spell over the lad, such as sometimes comes over one, when only partially awake. “Uncle Ruff tells me that he is going to remove me from this place, before winter comes again, and I can not tell whether his promise gives me most pleasure or pain. I feel that I ought to leave here, for my own nature tells me that this is not the way in which my Creator intends that I shall live. What I have learned at the forts, and what he has told me, has given me some idea of the great world which moves around me; but I shrink back from stepping into it. It must be that while this sort of life gives one a certain kind of courage, it also makes him a coward. I could meet the deadly Blackfoot with more courage than I could step into the streets of that wonderful city of San Francisco--that old Robsart calls Fr’isco. And yet, I suppose I would become accustomed to that, too, in time. If my dream of last night comes true, a change will come very soon. I mustn’t forget to keep my wits about me,” he added, with a sudden start, as if he were going to make amends for his temporary forgetfulness. Looking at the opposite bank, up and down stream, and off in the direction taken by the old hunter, he saw and heard nothing suspicious. All was as still and undisturbed as if this solitude had never been trod by the foot of man or animal. “I guess every thing is all right,” he concluded, as he lay back again, and gave way to the fascinating reverie that was continually stealing upon him. And, lost in these weird dreamings--these vague imaginings, Little Rifle became utterly oblivious to what was going on around him. He forgot that he was reclining in an Indian canoe, with no one standing sentinel over him; the lessons of the old trapper were lost upon him, and his mind was almost in the condition of the opium-taker, who really dwells apart in a world of his own.