“You! you!” he screamed. “You! I know you, Benoit Vascal! What have you done with my children!” He staggered from his couch, fell forward, and caught the Frenchman by the arm. “Tell me! My children, what of them?” “What’s the matter here?” demanded Sam Barringford, who chanced to be close by. “This man!” panted the strange sick man. “He—he stole my children! He is the rascal I have been hunting for—he and another, a Paul Camont. They took my twin boys! Ah, I remember it all now! Where are my children? Don’t dare to say you killed them!” “Your children—twins,” gasped the old frontiersman. “Can it be possible thet you air Mr. Maurice Hamilton?” “Yes! yes! that is my name! How strange I could not think of it before. Maurice Hamilton, yes, of London.” “Well, by the eternal!” came faintly from Barringford. He looked at the sick man sharply. “It must be so—ye look alike, same eyes, same nose, an’ all. This staggers me!” “Let me go!” came faintly from Benoit Vascal. “He has ze children—I haf zem not, no! Let me go!” for the other man now held him by the throat. The cries and loud talking had attracted a crowd, and all pushed forward to learn the cause of the disturbance. “It’s the greatest thing ye ever heard tell on,” said Sam Barringford. “This man is Maurice Hamilton, and the father o’ the twins.” “Can it be possible!” exclaimed Dave. “But where—where are my children?” asked Maurice Hamilton. “They are safe—leas’wise they war, the last I heard o’ ’em,” answered Barringford. “But this gits me! I never dreamed o’ sech a thing.” “Nor did I,” added Joseph Morris. After that there remained nothing to do but to tell Maurice Hamilton all about his little ones, how Barringford had found them, and how they had been cared for ever since by the Morrises. The sick man could not take it all in, but he understood enough and the tears of joy streamed down his wan face. “How I long to see them—my darling boys!” he murmured. “And you shall see them,” said Joseph Morris. “But first you must get well.” “And what of—of that rascal who robbed me?” “He is dying—let him rest,” was the planter’s soft answer. And then, for the time being, Maurice Hamilton was silent. From that hour on he mended rapidly, both mentally and physically, until, two months later, he was as well as ever. Benoit Vascal died two days later, and was buried in a common grave, along with the other Frenchmen who had fallen in the battle for the possession of the trading post.