Читать книгу Little Rifle; or, The Young Fur Hunters онлайн

31 страница из 33

“You know how hard I’ve tried, and once or twice, it seems to me that I have succeeded. It is a dim picture of riding over a deep broad river, with a good many people in the boat, and it seems to me that some of them were of my own color, and I think, though you know that it is all guesswork, that my father and mother were among them; but the picture is so dim and faint that when I try to fix it in my mind it slips away again, and all is dark.”

“Can’t you think of any thing else?—somethin’ different from that?” asked old Robsart, with the most intense interest.

“Nothing beyond that; all is blank. Of course, I remember the several times that you left me at the fort, and the kind men there, who taught me how to read and a great many other things, but my memory is able to do no more. Sometime it may succeed better.”

“Wal, I hope it will,” said Old Ruff, with a sigh; “it ’ud go hard with me to part with you, and I’d only do it fur your own good; but these woods ain’t the place to fetch up a younker like you. You’re smart ’nough, and handsome ’nough to desarve better things. Old Ruff has got a little pile of money stored away in one of the banks down in Fr’isco, and if your friends don’t turn up, afore the summer’s over, we’ll see what that can do fur you, my little pet.”