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By Root 1295 0

this council; for council it may be called, though women have seats among us. The simple fact is this. When the party came back from the castle, the Mingos held a council, and bitter thoughts were uppermost, as was plainly to be seen by their gloomy faces. No one likes to be beaten, and a redskin as little as a paleface. Well, when they had smoked upon it, and made their speeches, and their council fire had burnt low, the matter came out. It seems the elders among ’em consaited I was a man to be trusted on a furlough. They’re wonderful obsarvant, them Mingos; that their worst inimies must allow; but they consaited I was such a man; and it isn’t often”—added the hunter, with a pleasing consciousness that his previous life justified this implicit reliance on his good faith—“it isn’t often they consait anything so good of a paleface; but so they did with me, and therefore they didn’t hesitate to speak their minds, which is just this: You see the state of things. The lake and all on it, they fancy, lie at their mercy. Thomas Hutter is deceased, and as for Hurry, they’ve got the idee he has been near enough to death today not to wish to take another look at him this summer. Therefore, they account all your forces as reduced to Chingachgook and the two young women, and, while they know the Delaware to be of a high race, and a born warrior, they know he’s now on his first warpath. As for the gals, of course they set them down much as they do women in gin’ral.”

“You mean that they despise us!” interrupted Judith, with eyes that flashed so brightly as to be observed by all present.

“That will be seen in the ind. They hold that all on the lake lies at their mercy, and, therefore, they send by me this belt of wampum,” showing the article in question to the Delaware, as he spoke, “with these words: Tell the Sarpent, they say, that he has done well for a beginner; he may now strike across the mountains, for his own villages, and no one shall look for his trail. If he has found a scalp, let him take it with him; the Huron braves have hearts, and can feel for a young warrior who doesn’t wish to go home empty-handed. If he is nimble, he is welcome to lead out a party in pursuit. Hist, howsever, must go back to the Hurons; when she left them in the night, she carried away, by mistake, that which doesn’t belong to her.” “That can’t be true!” said Hetty, earnestly. “Hist is no such girl; but one that gives everybody his due—”

How much more she would have said, in remonstrance, cannot be known, inasmuch as Hist, partly laughing, and partly hiding her face in shame, put her own hand across the speaker’s mouth, in a way to check the words.

“You don’t understand Mingo messages, poor Hetty,” resumed Deerslayer, “which seldom mean what lies exactly uppermost. Hist has brought away with her the inclinations of a young Huron, and they want her back again, that the poor young man may find them where he last saw them! The Sarpent, they say, is too promising a young warrior not to find as many wives as he wants, but this one he cannot have. That’s their meaning, and nothing else, as I understand it.”

“They were very obliging and thoughtful, in supposing a young woman can forget all her own inclinations in order to let this unhappy youth find his!” said Judith ironically, though her manner became more bitter as she proceeded. “I suppose a woman is a woman, let her color be white or red; and your chiefs know little of a woman’s heart, Deerslayer, if they think it can ever forgive when wronged, or ever forget when it fairly loves.”

“I suppose that’s pretty much the truth, with some women, Judith, though I’ve known them that could do both. The next message is to you. They say the Muskrat, as they call your father, has dove to the bottom of the lake; that he will never come up again, and that his young will soon be in want of wigwams, if not of food. The Huron huts, they think, are better than the huts of York; they wish you to come and try them. Your color is white, they own, but they think young women who’ve lived so long in the woods, would lose