"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."