• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Good! Hawkeye should have been born a Huron! His blood is not more than half white!”

“There you’re out, Huron; yes there you’re as much out, as if you mistook a wolf for a catamount. I’m white in blood, heart, natur‘, and gifts, though a little redskin in feelin’s and habits. But when old Hutter’s eyes are well befogged, and his pretty darters, perhaps, in a deep sleep, and Hurry Harry, the Great Pine, as you Indians tarm him, is dreaming of anything but mischief, and all suppose Hawkeye is acting as a faithful sentinel, all I have to do is, to set a torch somewhere in sight for a signal, open the door, and let in the Hurons to knock ’em all on the head.”

“Surely my brother is mistaken; he cannot be white! He is worthy to be a great chief among the Hurons!”

“That is true enough, I dare to say, if he could do all this. Now, harkee, Huron, and for once hear a few honest words from the mouth of a plain man. I am a Christian born, and them that come of such a stock, and that listen to the words that were spoken to their fathers, and will be spoken to their children, until ‘arth and all it holds perishes, can never lend themselves to such wickedness. Sarcumventions in war may be, and are lawful; but sarcumventions, and deceit, and treachery, among fri’nds, are fit only for the paleface devils. I know that there are white men enough to give you this wrong idee of our natur’, but such are ontrue to their blood and gifts, and ought to be, if they are not, outcasts and vagabonds. No upright paleface could do what you wish, and to be as plain with you as I wish to be, in my judgment no upright Delaware either; with a Mingo it may be different.”1

The Huron listened to his rebuke with obvious disgust; but he had his ends in view, and was too wily to lose all chance of effecting them by a precipitate avowal of resentment. Affecting to smile, he seemed to listen eagerly, and he then pondered on what he had heard.

“Does Hawkeye love the Muskrat?” he abruptly demanded; “or does he love his daughters?”

“Neither, Mingo. Old Tom is not a man to gain my love; and as for the darters, they are comely enough to gain the liking of any young man; but there’s reason ag’in any very great love for either. Hetty is a good soul, but natur’ has laid a heavy hand on her mind, poor thing!”

“And the Wild Rose!” exclaimed the Huron—for the fame of Judith’s beauty had spread among those who could travel the wilderness as well as the highway, by means of old eagles’ nests, rocks, and riven trees, known to them by report and tradition, as well as among the white borderers—“And the Wild Rose; is she not sweet enough to be put in the bosom of my brother?”

Deerslayer had far too much of the innate gentleman to insinuate aught against the fair fame of one who, by nature and position, was so helpless; and as he did not choose to utter an untruth, he preferred being silent. The Huron mistook the motive, and supposed that disappointed affection lay at the bottom of his reserve. Still bent on corrupting or bribing his captive, in order to obtain possession of the treasures with which his imagination filled the castle, he persevered in his attack.

“Hawkeye is talking with a friend,” he continued. “He knows that Rivenoak is a man of his word, for they have traded together, and trade opens the soul. My friend has come here on account of a little string held by a girl, that can pull the whole body of the stoutest warrior?”

“You are nearer the truth now, Huron, than you’ve been afore, since we began to talk. This is true. But one end of that string was not fast to my heart, nor did the Wild Rose hold the other.”

“This is wonderful! Does my brother love in his head, and not in his heart? And can the Feeble-Mind pull so hard against so stout a warrior?”

“There it is ag‘in; sometimes right and sometimes wrong! The string you mean is fast to the heart of a great Delaware; one of the Mohican stock in fact, living among the Delawares since the dispersion of his own people, and of the family of Uncas—Chingachgook