"Who are you? Tell me your name, that I may thank you, for friends are not too numerous hereabouts, and I have already lost two comrades since I came on this trail. Tell me who you are, if you please?" for the lad saw by the stranger's kindly manner, his honest, sunburnt face, and his clear but piercing eyes, that he was no enemy.
"My real name doesn't matter, my lad, though I am well known in these parts, for the Indians on this side the lakes know me for a trapper, and they call me the 'Paleface Hunter,' and sometimes the 'Grey Badger.'
"But how came you here?"
"This is my home--this forest! I have lived here for fifteen years," said the trapper, indicating the wide stretch of forest land with a broad sweep of his hand.
"And how did you happen to find me, just when I needed a friend, too? When I sank down last night I never expected to see the light of another sun."
"I stumbled across you here at dawn. You were fast asleep, and I saw by your torn clothes and the scratches and flesh wounds on your hands and face that the Indians had been hot on your trail. I half feared to find your scalp-lock missing, but when I examined you I found that you were living, but so exhausted and dead-beat that to wake you up might finish you, so I just carried you in here, covered up your trail, and waited for you to awake."
"And for four hours," replied Jamie softly, and with tears in his voice--"for four hours, since dawn, you have watched over me like a child in a cradle, though any moment the Algonquins might have discovered your trail."
"Tut! tut! my lad! That's nothing----"
"Paleface--if I may so call you--you have saved my life, and I thank you with all my heart, though last night, when I lost my best friend, I cursed my fate and wished to die."
"'Tis more likely you who have saved my life."