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By Root 1142 0

from the ark, as they came, sooner or later, to the leaping place. The chief, who had taken the dangerous post in advance, having an earlier opportunity than the others, struck the scow just within the stern. The fall proving so much greater than he had anticipated, he was slightly stunned, and for a moment he remained half bent and unconscious of his situation. At this instant Judith rushed from the cabin, her beauty heightened by the excitement that produced the bold act, which flushed her cheek to crimson, and, throwing all her strength into the effort, she pushed the intruder over the edge of the scow, headlong into the river. This decided feat was no sooner accomplished than the woman resumed her sway; Judith looked over the stern to ascertain what had become of the man, and the expression of her eyes softened to concern, next, her cheek crimsoned between shame and surprise, at her own temerity, and then she laughed in her own merry and sweet manner. All this occupied less than a minute, when the arm of Deerslayer was thrown around her waist, and she was dragged swiftly within the protection of the cabin. This retreat was not effected too soon. Scarcely were the two in safety, when the forest was filled with yells, and bullets began to patter against the logs.

The ark being in swift motion all this while, it was beyond the danger of pursuit by the time these little events had occurred; and the savages, as soon as the first burst of their anger had subsided, ceased firing, with the consciousness that they were expending their ammunition in vain. When the scow came up over her grapnel, Hutter tripped the latter, in a way not to impede the motion; and being now beyond the influence of the current, the vessel continued to drift ahead, until fairly in the open lake, though still near enough to the land to render exposure to a rifle bullet dangerous. Hutter and March got out two small sweeps, and, covered by the cabin, they soon urged the ark far enough from the shore to leave no inducement to their enemies to make any further attempt to injure them.

CHAPTER V

“Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play,

For some must watch, while some must sleep,

Thus runs the world away.”

Shakespeare

ANOTHER CONSULTATION TOOK PLACE in the forward part of the scow, at which both Judith and Hetty were present. As no danger could now approach unseen, immediate uneasiness had given place to the concern which attended the conviction that enemies were in considerable force on the shores of the lake, and that they might be sure no practicable means of accomplishing their own destruction would be neglected. As a matter of course Hutter felt these truths the deepest, his daughters having an habitual reliance on his resources, and knowing too little to appreciate fully all the risks they ran; while his male companions were at liberty to quit him at any moment they saw fit. His first remark showed that he had an eye to the latter circumstance, and might have betrayed, to a keen observer, the apprehension that was just then uppermost.

“We’ve a great advantage over the Iroquois, or the enemy, whoever they are, in being afloat,” he said. “There’s not a canoe on the lake that I don’t know where it’s hid; and now yours is here, Hurry, there are but three more on the land, and they’re so snug in hollow logs that I don’t believe the Indians could find them, let them try ever so long.”

“There’s no telling that—no one can say that,” put in Deerslayer; “a hound is not more sartain on the scent than a redskin, when he expects to get anything by it. Let this party see scalps afore ‘em, or plunder, or honor accordin’ to their idees of what honor is, and ’twill be a tight log that hides a canoe from their eyes.”1

“You’re right, Deerslayer,” cried Harry March; “you’re downright Gospel in this matter, and I rej‘ice that my bunch of bark is safe enough here, within reach of my arm. I calcilate they’ll be at all the rest of the canoes afore tomorrow night, if they are in ra’al ’arnest to smoke you out, old Tom, and we may as well