• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1240 0

in low tones on the subject of the escape of their late companion. Perhaps it would be true to say, that these last were pleased as well as vexed at what had just occurred. Their female sympathies were with the lovers, while their pride was bound up in the success of their own tribe. It is possible, too, that the superior personal advantages of Hist rendered her dangerous to some of the younger part of the group, and they were not sorry to find she was no longer in the way of their own ascendency. On the whole, however, the better feeling was most prevalent; for neither the wild condition in which they lived, the clannish prejudices of tribes, nor their hard fortunes as Indian women, could entirely conquer the inextinguishable leaning of their sex to the affections. One of the girls even laughed at the disconsolate look of the swain who might fancy himself deserted, a circumstance that seemed suddenly to arouse his energies, and induced him to move towards the log on which the prisoner was still seated, drying his clothes.

“This is Catamount!” said the Indian, striking his hand boastfully on his naked breast as he uttered the words, in a manner to show how much weight he expected them to carry

“This is Hawkeye,” quietly returned Deerslayer, adopting the name by which he knew he would be known in future among all the tribes of the Iroquois. “My sight is keen; is my brother’s leap long?”

“From here to the Delaware villages. Hawkeye has stolen my wife; he must bring her back, or his scalp will hang on a pole and dry in my wigwam.”

“Hawkeye has stolen nothing, Huron. He doesn’t come of a thieving breed, nor has he thieving gifts. Your wife, as you call Wah-ta-Wah, will never be the wife of any redskin of the Canadas; her mind is in the cabin of a Delaware, and her body has gone to find it. The catamount is actyve, I know; but its legs can’t keep pace with a woman’s wishes.”

“The Serpent of the Delawares is a dog; he is a poor bullpout that keeps in the water; he is afraid to stand on the hard earth like a brave Indian! ”

“Well, well, Huron, that’s pretty impudent, considering it’s not an hour since the Sarpent stood within a hundred feet of you, and would have tried the toughness of your skin with a rifle bullet, when I pointed you out to him, hadn’t I laid the weight of a little judgment on his hand. You may take in timersome gals in the settlements with your catamount whine; but the ears of a man can tell truth from ontruth.”

“Hist laughs at him! She sees he is lame, and a poor hunter, and he has never been on a warpath. She will take a man for a husband, and not a fool.”

“How do you know that, Catamount? how do you know that?” returned Deerslayer, laughing. “She has gone into the lake, you see, and maybe she prefers a trout to a mongrel cat. As for warpaths, neither the Sarpent nor I have much exper‘ence, we are ready to own; but if you don’t call this one, you must tarm it what the gals in the settlements tarm it, the high road to matrimony. Take my advice, Catamount, and s’arch for a wife among the Huron women; you’ll never get one with a willing mind from among the Delawares.”

Catamount’s hand felt for his tomahawk, and when the fingers reached the handle they worked convulsively, as if their owner hesitated between policy and resentment. At this critical moment Rivenoak approached, and, by a gesture of authority, induced the young man to retire, assuming his former position, himself on the log at the side of Deerslayer. Here he continued silent for a little time, maintaining the grave reserve of an Indian chief

“Hawkeye is right,” the Iroquois at length began; “his sight is so strong that he can see truth in a dark night, and our eyes have been blinded. He is an owl, darkness hiding nothing from him. He ought not to strike his friends. He is right.”

“I’m glad you think so, Mingo,” returned the other, “for a traitor, in my judgment, is worse than a coward. I care as little for the Muskrat as one paleface ought to care for another; but I care too much for him to ambush him in the way you wished. In short, according