“Your home?” repeated the stranger, in amazement; “have you a home in this wilderness?” “Come with me and you shall see,” replied Little Rifle, flushing, and dropping his eyes with confusion to the ground. “All right, lead the way, only don’t walk too fast, for I feel a little rheumatic in my joints, and can’t get along fast.” As the boy hobbled forward again, leaning upon the arm of his friend, something dropped from his bosom, and as he stooped to pick it up he said, with a laugh: “I lost my oar, hat and gun, but the spy-glass stuck by me to the last, perhaps because I could better afford to part with that than any of the others.” “We will go back by the falls,” said Little Rifle, “for I left my gun there when I jumped into the water. Then we will take the nearest cut home, and get there, I hope, in the course of a few hours.” “See here!” said the other, pausing for a moment, “ain’t there any Indians there?” “I will look out for them,” was the reply; “but tell me how it was you came to be alone in your canoe on the river.” “I will tell you as we walk along, for it is quite a long story. What is your name?” “They call me Little Rifle,” replied the lad, with no little embarrassment of manner, “and if you please, you may do the same.” “An odd name, but rather pretty. You may call me Harry Northend. I don’t suppose you remember ever seeing me before?” he asked, in a significant manner. “Of course not,” returned Little Rifle, greatly surprised. “Why do you ask?” “_Because I have seen you before!_” CHAPTER IX. NEW FRIENDS. Little Rifle and Harry stood side by side on the margin of the stream down which the latter had made his frightful plunge, and from which he had been rescued by the daring young trapper. “Yes,” repeated Harry, with a meaning laugh, “I have seen you before, if you haven’t seen me.” “I am sure you are mistaken,” replied Little Rifle, embarrassed at his persistency. “I have lived among the mountains and woods ever since I can remember.” “And that’s where I saw you,” added Harry, who seemed to recover his strength and spirits with remarkable celerity. “I wonder, now, whether you were not lying in the back part of a canoe, this morning, half-asleep, without suspecting that a big Blackfoot Indian was creeping up to you with his tomahawk in hand.” And Harry laughed, as if he had just heard the funniest joke of his life. A light began to break in upon the mind of Little Rifle. How could his new acquaintance know any thing of that incident, which neither himself nor Ruff Robsart had told to any one? “_You_ are the one who fired the gun that saved me!” he exclaimed, reaching out to take the hand of Harry.