“Uncas is here!” said another voice, in the same soft, guttural tones, near his elbow; “who wishes Uncas?”
The white man loosened his knife in its leathern sheath, and made an involuntary movement of the hand towards his rifle, at this sudden interruption, but the Indian sat composed, and without turning his head at the unexpected sounds.
At the next instant, a youthful warrior passed between them, with a noiseless step, and seated himself on the bank of the rapid stream. No exclamation of surprise escaped the father, nor was any question made or reply given for several minutes, each appearing to await the moment, when he might speak, without betraying a womanish curiosity or childish impatience. The white man seemed to take counsel from their customs, and relinquishing his grasp of the rifle, he also remained silent and reserved. At length Chingachgook turned his eyes slowly towards his son, and demanded–
“Do the Maquas dare to leave the print of their moccasins in these woods?”
“I have been on their trail,” replied the young Indian, “and know that they number as many as the fingers of my two hands; but they lie hid like cowards.”
“The thieves are outlying for scalps and plunder!” said the white man, whom we shall call Hawk-eye, after the manner of his companions. “That busy Frenchman, Montcalm, will send his spies into our very camp, but he will know what road we travel!”
“’Tis enough!” returned the father, glancing his eye towards the setting sun; “they shall be driven like deer from their bushes. Hawk-eye, let us eat to-night, and show the Maquas that we are men tomorrow.”
“I am as ready to do the one as the other,” replied the scout; “but to fight the Iroquois, ’tis necessary to find the skulkers; and to eat, ’tis necessary to get the game–talk of the devil and he will come; there is a pair of the biggest antlers I have seen this season, moving the bushes below the hill! Now, Uncas,” he continued in a half whisper, and laughing with a kind of inward sound, like one who had learnt to be watchful, “I will bet my charger three times full of powder, against a foot of wampum, that I take him atwixt the eyes, and nearer to the right than to the left.”
“It cannot be!” said the young Indian, springing to his feet with youthful eagerness; “all but the tips of his horns are hid!”
“He’s a boy!” said the white man, shaking his head while he spoke, and addressing the father. “Does he think when a hunter sees a part of the creatur, he can’t tell where the rest of him should be!”
Adjusting his rifle, he was about to make an exhibition of that skill, on which he so much valued himself, when the warrior struck up the piece with his hand, saying,
“Hawk-eye! will you fight the Maquas?”
“These Indians know the nature of the woods, as it might be by instinct!” returned the scout, dropping his rifle, and turning away like a man who was convinced of his error. “I must leave the buck to your arrow, Uncas, or we may kill a deer for them thieves, the Iroquois, to eat.”
The instant the father seconded this intimation by an expressive gesture of the hand, Uncas threw himself on the ground, and approached the animal with wary movements. When, within a few yards of the cover, he fitted an arrow to his bow with the utmost care, while the antlers moved, as if their owner snuffed an enemy in the tainted air. In another moment the twang of the bow was heard, a white streak was seen glancing into the bushes, and the wounded buck plunged from the cover, to the very feet of his hidden enemy. Avoiding the horns of the infuriated animal, Uncas darted to his side, and passed his knife across the throat, when bounding to the edge of the river, it fell, dying the waters with its blood to a great distance.
“’Twas done with Indian skill,” said the scout, laughing inwardly, but with vast satisfaction; “and was a pretty sight to behold! Though an arrow is a near shot, and needs a knife to finish the work.”
“Hugh!” ejaculated his companion, turning quickly, like a hound who scented his game.
“By the Lord, there is a drove of them!” exclaimed the hunting scout, whose eyes began to glisten with the ardour of his usual occupation; “if they come within range of a bullet, I will drop one, though the whole Six Nations should be lurking within sound! What do you hear, Chingachgook? for to my ears the woods are dumb.”
“There is but one deer, and he is dead,” said the Indian, bending his body, till his ear nearly touched the earth. “I hear the sounds of feet!”
“Perhaps the wolves have driven that buck to shelter, and are following in his trail.”
“No. The horses of white men are coming!” returned the other, raising himself with dignity, and resuming his seat on the log with all his former composure. “Hawk-eye, they are your brothers; speak to them.”
“That will I, and in English that the king needn’t be ashamed to answer,” returned the hunter, speaking in the language of which he boasted; “but I see nothing, nor do I hear the sounds of man or beast; ’tis strange that an Indian should understand white sounds better than a man, who, his very enemies will own, has no cross in his blood, although he may have lived with the red skins long enough to be suspected! Ha! there goes something like the cracking of a dry stick, too–now I hear the bushes move –yes, yes, there is a tramping that I mistook for the falls–and–but here they come themselves; God keep them from the Iroquois!”
CHAPTER IV.
Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove, Till torment thee for this injury.
Mid. Sum. Night’s Dream
The words were still in the mouth of the scout, when the leader of the party, whose approaching footsteps had caught the vigilant ear of the Indian, came openly into view. A beaten path, such as those made by the periodical passage of the deer, wound through a little glen at no great distance, and struck the river at the point where the white man and his red companions had posted themselves. Along this track the travellers, who had produced a surprise so unusual in the depths of the forest, advanced slowly towards the hunter, who was in front of his associates, in readiness to receive them.
“Who comes?” demanded the scout, throwing his rifle carelessly across his left arm, and keeping the fore finger of his right hand on the trigger, though he avoided all appearance of menace in the act– “Who comes hither, among the beasts and dangers of the wilderness?”
“Believers in religion, and friends to the law and to the king,” returned he who rode foremost of the party. “Men who have journeyed since the rising sun, in the shades of this forest, without nourishment, and are sadly tired of their wayfaring.”
“You are, then, lost,” interrupted the hunter, “and have found how helpless ’tis not to know whether to take the right hand or the left?”
“Even so; sucking babes are not more dependent on those who guide them, than we who are of larger growth, and who may now be said to possess the stature without the knowledge of men. Know you the distance to a post of the crown called William Henry?”
“Hoot!” shouted the scout, who did not spare his open laughter, though, instantly checking the dangerous sounds, he indulged his merriment at less risk of being overheard by any lurking enemies. “You are as much off the scent as a hound would be, with Horican atwixt him and the deer! William Henry, man! if you are friends to the king, and have business with the army, your better way would be to follow the river down to Edward, and lay the matter before Webb; who tarries there, instead of pushing into the defiles, and driving this saucy Frenchman back across Champlain, into his den again.”
Before the stranger could make any reply to this unexpected proposition, another horseman dashed the bushes aside, and leaped his charger into the pathway in front of his companion.
“What, then, may be our distance from Fort Edward?” demanded a new speaker; “the place you advise us to seek we left this morning, and our destination is the head of the lake.”
“Then you must have lost your eyesight afore losing your way, for the road across the portage is cut to a good two rods, and is as grand a path, I calculate, as any that runs into London, or even before the palace of the king himself.”
“We will not dispute concerning the excellence of the passage,” returned Heyward, smiling, for, as the reader has anticipated, it was he. “It is enough, for the present, that we trusted to an Indian guide to take us by a nearer, though blinder path, and that we are deceived in his knowledge. In plain words, we know not where we are.”