"Forgotten! No; I shall never forget the morning when you came over to us with that tall, half-breed fellow, in a Canadian capote." "Yes,--Antoine Le Rouge." "We should have starved if you had not found us, and perhaps lost our scalps into the bargain." "The Rickarees had made a clean sweep of your horses." "Not a hoof was left to us. Our four Canadians were scared to death; I was ill; not one of us was fit for service but Ireton; and we had not three days' provision. If you had not given us your spare mules and horses, and seen us safe to Fort Cass, the wolves would have made a supper of some of us." "And do you remember," said Morton, "after we broke up camp that morning, how the Rickaree devils came galloping at us down the hill, and thought they could ride over us, and how we fought them all the forenoon, lying on our faces behind the pack saddles and baggage?" "I remember it as if it were yesterday. I can hear the crack of the rifles now, and the yelling of those bloodthirsty vagabonds." "It is strange," pursued Wentworth, "that I did not recognize you at once. I have thought of you a thousand times; but it is eight years since we met, and you are very much changed. Besides we were together only two days. And yet I can hardly forgive myself." "Any wandering trapper would have done as much for you as I did; or, if he had not, he would have deserved a cudgelling. What has become of the young man, or boy, rather, who was with you?" "You mean Ireton. Dead, poor fellow--dead." "I am very sorry. He was the coolest of us all in the fight. He had a singular face, but a very handsome one. I can recall it distinctly at this moment." Wentworth took a miniature from a desk, opened it, and placed it before Morton. "These are his features," said the latter, "but this is the portrait of a lady." "His sister--his twin sister. Dead too!" There was a change, as he spoke, in his voice and manner, so marked that Morton forbore to pursue the subject farther. He studied the picture in silence. It was a young and beautiful face, delicate, yet full of fire; and by some subtilty of his craft, the artist had given to the eyes an expression which reminded him of the restless glances which he had seen a caged falcon at the Garden of Plants cast upwards at the sky, into which he was debarred from soaring. In a few moments, Wentworth spoke in his accustomed tone. "The point first to be thought of, is to get you out of this predicament. I have a man who took to his bed this morning, and is at present shaking in an ague fit. He is of about your age, height, and complexion; and by wearing his dress, you could travel under his passport. I am not at all a suspected person, and if my friend will pass for a few days as my servant, I do not doubt that we shall reach Genoa without interruption." Morton warmly expressed his gratitude, but protested against Wentworth's undertaking the journey on his account.