s humane task before the boilers of the
burning steamer exploded, and she was instantly a wreck on the swift
tide. Matt paddled his bateau as swiftly as possible, but he was unable
to overtake the mass of rushing fire. He shouted occasionally, in order
to attract the attention of any sufferer; but no one responded to his
call. Though he searched diligently, he was unable to find another
survivor of the terrible calamity.

The little child thus saved from the fire and the water was myself.

Matt took his charge to the shore, made a fire, warmed it, and fed it
with buffalo meat and soaked cracker. Wrapping the little stranger in
his blanket, he pressed him to his bosom, and both slept till morning.
The next day, with the child in his bateau, he renewed the search for
any survivors of the calamity. He could find none; but months
afterwards he read in an old newspaper he had obtained from a trading
steamer, that another boat had passed down the river and picked up a
few persons; but neither the names of the lost nor of the saved were
given.

Loading his bateau with as much buffalo meat as it would carry, Matt
started for the Castle with his new charge; but the current of the
swollen river was so swift that it was night before he arrived. At this
point in his story, I used to ask my kind protector whether he tried to
find out anything more about me. He always answered that he was unable
to obtain any information; but, after I was old enough to understand
the matter better, he confessed that he did not wish to discover the
friends of the child. After he had taken care of it for a few months,
he became so attached to it that he was only afraid of losing the
little waif.

[Illustration: MATT AND THE LITTLE FOUNDLING. Page 55.]

I was only two years old when I was thus cast upon the protection of
the old squatter. He watched over me and cared for me with all the
tenderness of a mother, and I became a stout and healthy child. The
plain food and the wholesome air of the wilderness gave vigor to my
limbs. The old man took care of me like a woman when I had the maladies
incident to childhood, and I passed safely through the whole catalogue
of them.

The steamer which had been burned was the Farringford, and Matt had
read the name on her paddle-box. He gave it to me as a surname, to
which he prefixed Philip as a Christian name, simply because it suited
his fancy. With such a charge on his hands Matt was unable to make any
hun