CHAPTER II.
Yea! long as nature's humblest child
Hath kept her temple undefiled
By simple sacrifice,
Earth's fairest scenes are all his own,
He is a monarch, and his throne
Is built amid the skies!
Wilson.
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The Mohican continued to eat, though the second white
man rose, and courteously took off his cap to Mabel Dunham.
He was young, healthful, and manly in appearance; and
he wore a dress, which, while it was less rigidly professional
than that of the uncle, also denoted one accustomed to the
water. In that age, real seamen were a class entirely apart
from the rest of mankind;—their ideas, ordinary language,
and attire, being as strongly indicative of their calling, as the
opinions, speech, and dress of a Turk denote a Mussulman
Although the Pathfinder was scarcely in the prime of life,
Mabel had met him with a steadiness that may have been the
consequence of having braced her nerves for the interview;
but, when her eyes encountered those of the young man at
the fire, they fell before the gaze of admiration, with which
she saw, or fancied she saw, he greeted her. Each, in truth,
felt that interest in the other, which similarity of age, condition,
mutual comeliness, and their novel situation would be
likely to inspire in the young and ingenuous.
“Here,” said Pathfinder, with an honest smile bestowed on
Mabel, “are the friends your worthy father has sent to meet
you. This is a great Delaware; and one that has had
honours as well as troubles in his day. He has an Indian
name fit for a chief, but as the language is not always easy
for the inexperienced to pronounce, we naturally turn it into
English, and call him the Big Sarpent. You are not to suppose,
however, that by this name we wish to say that he is
treacherous, beyond what is lawful in a red-skin, but that he
is wise, and has the cunning that becomes a warrior. Arrowhead,
there, knows what I mean.”
While the Pathfinder was delivering this address, the two
Indians gazed on each other steadily, and the Tuscarora
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advanced and spoke to the other in an apparently friendly
manner.
“I like to see this,” continued Pathfinder; “the salutes
of two red-skins in the woods, master Cap, are like the hailing
of friendly vessels on the ocean. But, speaking of
water, it reminds me of my young friend, Jasper Western,
here, who can claim to know something of these matters,
seeing that he has passed his days on Ontario.”
“I am glad to see you, friend,” said Cap, giving the young
fresh-water sailor a cordial gripe; “though you must have
something still to learn, considering the school to which you
have been sent. This is my niece, Mabel—I call her Magnet,
for a reason she never dreams of, though you may,
possibly, have education enough to guess at it, having some
pretensions to understand the compass, I suppose.”
“The reason is easily comprehended,” said the young
man, involuntarily fastening his keen dark eye, at the same
time, on the suffused face of the girl; “and I feel sure that
the sailor who steers by your Magnet, will never make a bad
land-fall.”
“Ha—you do make use of some of the terms, I find, and
that with propriety and understanding; though, on the whole,
I fear you have seen more green than blue water!”
“It is not surprising that we should get some of the
phrases that belong to the land, for we are seldom out of
sight of it, twenty-four hours at a time.”
“More 's the pity, boy; more 's the pity. A very little
land ought to go a great way with a seafaring man. Now,
if the truth were known, Master Western, I suppose there is
more or less land all round your lake.”
“And, uncle, is there not more or less land around the
ocean?” said Magnet, quickly; for she dreaded a premature
display of the old seaman's peculiar dogmatism, not to say,
pedantry.
“No, child, there is more or less ocean all round the land!
that 's what I tell the people ashore, youngster. They are
living, as it might be, in the midst of the sea, without knowing
it; by sufferance, as it were, the water being so much
the more powerful, and the largest. But there is no end to
conceit in this world, for a fellow who never saw salt water
often fancies he knows more than one who has gone round
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the Horn. No—no—this earth is pretty much an island,
and all that can be truly said not to be so, is water.”
Young Western had a profound deference for a mariner
of the ocean, on which he had often pined to sail; but he
had, also, a natural regard for the broad sheet on which he
had passed his life, and which was not without its beauties in
his eyes.
“What you say, sir,” he answered, modestly, “may be
true, as to the Atlantic; but we have a respect for the land,
up here, on Ontario.”
“That is because you are always land-locked,” returned
Cap, laughing heartily; “But yonder is the Pathfinder, as
they call him, with some smoking platters, inviting us to
share in his mess; and I will confess that one gets no venison
at sea. Master Western, civility to girls, at your time of life,
comes as easy as taking in the slack of the ensign halyards;
and if you will just keep an eye to her kid and cann, while I
join the mess of the Pathfinder and our Indian friends, I
make no doubt she will remember it.”
Master Cap uttered more than he was aware of at the
time. Jasper Western did attend to the wants of Mabel, and
she long remembered the kind, manly attention of the young
sailor, at this their first interview. He placed the end of a
log for a seat, obtained for her a delicious morsel of the venison,
gave her a draught of pure water from the spring, and as
he sat near and opposite to her, fast won his way to her esteem
by his gentle but frank manner of manifesting his care; homage
that woman always wishes to receive, but which is never
so flattering, or so agreeable, as when it comes from the young
to those of their own age; from the manly to the gentle.
Like most of those who pass their time excluded from the
society of the softer sex, young Western was earnest, sincere,
and kind in his attentions, which, though they wanted a
conventional refinement, that, perhaps, Mabel never missed,
had those winning qualities that prove very sufficient as substitutes.
Leaving these two inexperienced and unsophisticated
young people to become acquainted through their feelings,
rather than their expressed thoughts, we will turn to the
group, in which the uncle, with a facility of taking care
of himself that never deserted him, had already become
a principal actor.
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The party had taken their places around a platter of venison
steaks, which served for the common use, and the discourse
naturally partook of the characters of the different
individuals that composed it. The Indians were silent and
industrious, the appetite of the aboriginal American for venison
being seemingly inappeasable, while the two white men
were communicative and discursive, each of the latter being
garrulous and opinionated in his way. But, as the dialogue
will serve to put the reader in possession of certain facts that
may render the succeeding narrative more clear, it will be
well to record it.
“There must be satisfaction in this life of yours, no doubt,
Mr. Pathfinder,” continued Cap, when the hunger of the
travellers was so far appeased that they began to pick and
choose among the savoury morsels; “it has some of the
chances and luck that we seamen like, and if ours is all
water, yours is all land.”
“Nay, we have water too, in our journeyings and marches,”
returned his white companion: “we border-men handle the
paddle and the spear, almost as much as the rifle and the
hunting-knife.”
“Ay; but do you handle the brace and the bow-line; the
wheel and the lead-line; the reef-point and the top-rope?
The paddle is a good thing, out of doubt, in a canoe, but of
what use is it in the ship?”
“Nay, I respect all men in their callings, and I can believe
the things you mention have their uses. One, who has lived,
like myself, in company with many tribes, understands
differences in usages. The paint of a Mingo is not the
paint of a Delaware; and he who should expect to see a
warrior in the dress of a squaw, might be disappointed. I
am not yet very old, but I have lived in the woods, and have
some acquaintance with human natur'. I never believed
much in the learning of them that dwell in towns, for I never
yet met with one that had an eye for a rifle, or a trail.”
“That's my manner of reasoning, Master Pathfinder, to
a yarn. Walking about streets, going to church of Sundays,
and hearing sermons, never yet made a man of a human
being. Send the boy out upon the broad ocean, if you wish
to open his eyes, and let him look upon foreign nations, or,
what I call the face of natur', if you wish him to understand
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his own character. Now, there is my brother-in-law, the
serjeant, he is as good a fellow as ever broke a biscuit, in
his way; but what is he, after all? why, nothing but a soldier.
A serjeant, to be sure, but that is a sort of a soldier,
you know. When he wished to marry poor Bridget, my
sister, I told the girl what he was, as in duty bound, and
what she might expect from such a husband, but you know
how it is with girls when their minds are jammed by an inclination.
It is true, the serjeant has risen in his calling, and
they say he is an important man at the fort; but his poor wife
has not lived to see it all, for she has now been dead these
fourteen years.”
“A soldier's calling is an honourable calling, provided he
has fi't only on the side of right,” returned the Pathfinder;
“and as the Frenchers are always wrong, and His Sacred
Majesty and these colonies are always right, I take it the
serjeant has a quiet conscience, as well as a good character.
I have never slept more sweetly than when I have fi't the
Mingos, though it is the law with me to fight always like a
white man, and never like an Indian. The Sarpent, here,
has his fashions, and I have mine; and yet have we fou't,
side by side, these many years, without either's thinking a
hard thought consarning the other's ways. I tell him there
is but one heaven and one hell, notwithstanding his traditions,
though there are many paths to both.”
“That is rational, and he is bound to believe you, though
I fancy most of the roads to the last, are on dry land. The
sea is what my poor sister, Bridget, use to call a `purifying
place,' and one is out of the way of temptation when out of
sight of land. I doubt if as much can be said in favour of
your lakes, up hereaway.”
“That towns and settlements lead to sin, I will allow; but
our lakes are bordered by the forests, and one is every day
called upon to worship God, in such a temple. That men
are not always the same, even in the wilderness, I must
admit, for the difference between a Mingo and a Delaware,
is as plain to be seen as the difference between the sun and
the moon. I am glad, friend Cap, that we have met, however,
if it be only that you may tell the Big Sarpent, here,
that there are lakes in which the water is salt. We have
been pretty much of one mind since our acquaintance began,
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and if the Mohican has only half the faith in me that I have
in him, he believes all that I have told him, touching the
white men's ways and natur's laws; but, it has always
seemed to me that none of the red-skins have given as free a
belief, as an honest man likes, to the accounts of the Big
Salt Lakes, and to that of there being rivers that flow up
stream.”
“This comes of getting things wrong end foremost,”
answered Cap, with a condescending nod. “You have
thought of your lakes and rifts, as the ship, and of the ocean
and the tides, as the boat. Neither Arrowhead nor the Serpent
need doubt what you have said concerning both, though
I confess, myself, to some difficulty in swallowing the tale
about there being inland seas, at all, and still more that there
is any sea of fresh water. I have come this long journey,
as much to satisfy my own eyes and palate concerning these
facts, as to oblige the serjeant and Magnet, though the first
was my sister's husband, and I love the last like a child.”
“You are wrong—you are wrong, friend Cap, very wrong
to distrust the power of God, in any thing,” returned Pathfinder,
earnestly. “They that live in the settlements and
the towns get to have confined and unjust opinions consarning
the might of His hand, but we who pass our time,
in his very presence, as it might be, see things differently—
I mean such of us as have white natur's. A red-skin has his
notions, and it is right that it should be so, and if they are
not exactly the same as a Christian white man's, there is no
harm in it. Still there are matters that belong altogether to
the ordering of God's Providence,—and these salt and fresh
water lakes are some of them. I do not pretend to account
for these things, but I think it the duty of all to believe in
them. For my part, I am one of them who think that the
same hand which made the sweet water, can make the salt.”
“Hold on there, Master Pathfinder,” interrupted Cap, not
without some heat; “in the way of a proper and manly faith,
I will turn my back on no one, when afloat. Although more
accustomed to make all snug aloft, and to show the proper
canvass, than to pray, when the hurricane comes, I know that
we are but helpless mortals at times, and I hope I pay reverence
where reverence is due. All I mean to say, and that
is rather insinuated than said, is this; which is, as you all
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know, simply an intimation that, being accustomed to see
water in large bodies salt, I should like to taste it, before I
can believe it to be fresh.”
“God has given the salt lick to the deer, and he has given
to man, red-skin and white, the delicious spring at which
to slake his thirst. It is unreasonable to think that he may
not have given lakes of pure water to the west, and lakes
of impure water to the east.”
Cap was awed, in spite of his overweening dogmatism, by
the earnest simplicity of the Pathfinder, though he did not
relish the idea of believing a fact which, for many years, he
had pertinaciously insisted could not be true. Unwilling to
give up the point, and, at the same time, unable to maintain
it against a reasoning to which he was unaccustomed, and
which possessed equally the force of truth, faith, and probability,
he was glad to get rid of the subject by evasion.
“Well, well, friend Pathfinder,” he said, “we will nipper
the argument where it is; and, as the serjeant has sent you
to give us pilotage to this same lake, we can try the water
when we once reach it. Only mark my words—I do not say
that it may not be fresh on the surface; the Atlantic is
sometimes fresh on the surface, near the mouths of great
rivers; but, rely on it, I shall show you a way of tasting the
water many fathoms deep, of which you never dreamed;
and then we shall know more about it.”
The guide seemed content to let the matter rest, and the
conversation changed.
“We are not over-conceited concerning our gifts,” observed
the Pathfinder after a short pause, “and well know that such
as live in the towns, and near the sea—”
“On the sea,” interrupted Cap.
“On the sea, if you wish it, friend, have opportunities that
do not befal us of the wilderness. Still, we know our own
callings, and they are what I consider natural callings, and
are not parvarted by vanity and wantonness. Now, my gifts
are with the rifle, and on a trail, and in the way of game and
scouting; for, though I can use the spear and the paddle, I
pride not myself on either. The youth, Jasper, there, who
is discoursing with the serjeant's daughter, is a different
creatur', for he may be said to breathe the water, as it might
be, like a fish. The Indians and Frenchers of the north
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shore call him Eau-douce, on account of his gifts in this particular.
He is better at the oar and the rope too, than in
making fires on a trail.”
“There must be something about these gifts of which you
speak, after all,” said Cap. “Now this fire, I will acknowledge,
has overlaid all my seamanship. Arrowhead, there, said
the smoke came from a pale-face's fire, and that is a piece
of philosophy that I hold to be equal to steering in a dark
night by the edges of the scud.”
“It 's no great secret—it 's no great secret,” returned Pathfinder,
laughing with great inward glee, though habitual caution
prevented the emission of any noise. “Nothing is easier
to us who pass our time in the great school of Providence,
than to larn its lessons. We should be as useless on a trail,
or in carrying tidings through the wilderness, as so many
woodchucks, did we not soon come to a knowledge of these
niceties. Eau-douce, as we call him, is so fond of the water,
that he gathered a damp stick or two for our fire, and there
are plenty of them, as well as those that are thoroughly dried,
lying scattered about; and wet will bring dark smoke, as I
suppose even you followers of the sea must know. It 's no
great secret—it 's no great secret—though all is mystery to
such as doesn't study the Lord and his mighty ways with
humility and thankfulness.”
“That must be a keen eye of Arrowhead's, to see so slight
a difference.”
“He would be but a poor Indian, if he did'nt! No, no;
it is war-time, and no red-skin is outlying without using his
senses. Every skin has its own natur', and every natur' has
its own laws, as well as its own skin. It was many years
before I could master all these higher branches of a forest
edication, for red-skin knowledge doesn't come as easy to
white-skin natur', as what I suppose is intended to be white-skin
knowledge; though I have but little of the latter, having
past most of my time in the wilderness.”
“You have been a ready scholar, Master Pathfinder, as is
seen by your understanding these things so well. I suppose
it would be no great matter, for a man regularly brought up
to the sea, to catch these trifles, if he could only bring his
mind fairly to bear upon them.”
“I don't know that. The white man has his difficulties
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in getting red-skin habits, quite as much as the Indian in
getting white-skin ways. As for the real natur', it is my
opinion that neither can actually get that of the other.”
“And yet we sailors, who run about the world so much,
say there is but one nature, whether it be in the China-man
or a Dutchman. For my own part, I am much of that way
of thinking too; for I have generally found that all nations
like gold and silver, and most men relish tobacco.”
“Then you sea-faring men know little of the red-skins.
Have you ever known any of your China-men who could
sing their death-songs, with their flesh torn with splinters, and
cut with knives, the fire raging around their naked bodies,
and death staring them in the face? Until you can find me
a China-man, or a Christian-man, that can do all this, you
cannot find a man with a red-skin natur', let him look ever
so valiant, or know how to read all the books that were ever
printed.”
“It is the savages only that play each other such hellish
tricks!” said Master Cap, glancing his eyes about him uneasily
at the apparently endless arches of the forest. “No
white man is ever condemned to undergo these trials.”
“Nay, therein you are again mistaken,” returned the
Pathfinder, coolly selecting a delicate morsel of the venison
as his bonne bouche; “for though these torments belong
only to the red-skin natur', in the way of bearing them like
braves, white-skin natur' may be, and often has been, agonized
by them.”
“Happily,” said Cap, with an effort to clear his throat,
“none of His Majesty's allies will be likely to attempt such
damnable cruelties, on any of His Majesty's loyal subjects.
I have not served much in the royal navy, it is true; but I
have served—and that is something; and, in the way of privateering
and worrying the enemy in his ships and cargoes,
I 've done my full share. But I trust there are no French
savages on this side the lake, and I think you said that Ontario
is a broad sheet of water?”
“Nay, it is broad in our eyes,” returned Pathfinder, not
caring to conceal the smile which lighted a face that had
been burnt by exposure to a bright red, “though I mistrust
that some may think it narrow; and narrow it is, if you
wish it to keep off the foe. Ontario has two ends, and the
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enemy that is afraid to cross it, will be certain to come round
it.”
“Ah! that comes of your d—d freshwater ponds!”
growled Cap, hemming so loud as to cause him instantly to
repent the indiscretion. “No man, now, ever heard of a
pirate's, or a ship's getting round one end of the Atlantic!”
“Mayhap the ocean has no ends?”
“That it has n't; nor sides, nor bottom. The nation that
is snugly moored on one of its coasts need fear nothing from
the one anchored abeam, let it be ever so savage, unless it
possesses the art of ship-building. No—no—the people who
live on the shores of the Atlantic need fear but little for their
skins or their scalps. A man may lie down at night, in those
regions, in the hope of finding the hair on his head in the
morning, unless he wears a wig.”
“It is n't so here. I don't wish to flurry the young woman,
and therefore I will be no way particular—though she
seems pretty much listening to Eau-douce, as we call him—
but without the edication I have received, I should think it,
at this very moment, a risky journey to go over the very
ground that lies between us and the garrison, in the present
state of this frontier. There are about as many Iroquois on
this side of Ontario, as there are on the other. It is for this
very reason, friend Cap, that the serjeant has engaged us to
come out and show you the path.”
“What!—do the knaves dare to cruise so near the guns
of one of His Majesty's works?”
“Do not the ravens resort near the carcase of the deer,
though the fowler is at hand? They come this-a-way, as it
might be, naturally. There are more or less whites passing
between the forts and the settlements, and they are sure to be
on their trails. The Sarpent has come up one side of the
river, and I have come up the other, in order to scout for the
outlying rascals, while Jasper brought up the canoe, like a
bold-hearted sailor, as he is. The serjeant told him, with
tears in his eyes, all about his child, and how his heart
yearned for her, and how gentle and obedient she was, until
I think the lad would have dashed into a Mingo camp, single
handed, rather than not a-come.”
“We thank him—we thank him; and shall think the
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better of him for his readiness; though I suppose the boy has
run no great risk, after all.”
“Only the risk of being shot from a cover, as he forced
the canoe up a swift rift, or turned an elbow in the stream,
with his eyes fastened on the eddies. Of all the risky journeys,
that on an ambushed river is the most risky, in my
judgment, and that risk has Jasper run.”
“And why the devil has the serjeant sent for me to travel
a hundred and fifty miles in this outlandish manner! Give
me an offing, and the enemy in sight, and I 'll play with him
in his own fashion, as long as he pleases, long bows, or close
quarters; but to be shot like a turtle asleep, is not to my
humour. If it were not for little Magnet, there, I would
tack ship this instant, make the best of my way back to
York, and let Ontario take care of itself, salt water or fresh
water.”
“That wouldn't mend the matter much, friend mariner, as
the road to return is much longer, and almost as bad as the
road to go on. Trust to us, and we will carry you through
safe, or lose our scalps.”
Cap wore a tight solid cue, done up in eel-skin, while the
top of his head was nearly bald; and he mechanically passed
his hand over both, as if to make certain that each was
in its right place. He was at the bottom, however, a brave
man, and had often faced death with coolness, though never
in the frightful forms in which it presented itself, under the
brief, but graphic, picture of his companion. It was too late
to retreat; and he determined to put the best face on the matter,
though he could not avoid muttering inwardly a few
curses on the indifference and indiscretion with which his
brother-in-law, the serjeant, had led him into his present
dilemma.
“I make no doubt, Master Pathfinder,” he answered,
when these thoughts had found time to glance through his
mind, “that we shall reach port in safety. What distance
may we now be from the fort?”
“Little more than fifteen miles; and swift miles too, as
the river runs, if the Mingos let us go clear.”
“And I suppose the woods will stretch along, starboard and
larboard, as heretofore?”
“Anan?”
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“I mean that we shall have to pick our way through
these damned trees!”
“Nay, nay, you will go in the canoe, and the Oswego has
been cleared of its flood-wood by the troops. It will be floating
down stream, and that, too, with a swift current.”
“And what the devil is to prevent these minks, of which
you speak, from shooting us as we double a head-land, or are
busy in steering clear of the rocks?”
“The Lord!—He who has so often helped others, in greater
difficulties. Many and many is the time that my head would
have been stripped of hair, skin and all, hadn't the Lord fi't
of my side. I never go into a skrimmage, friend mariner,
without thinking of this great ally, who can do more in battle,
than all the battalions of the 60th, were they brought
into a single line.”
“Ay—ay—this may do well enough for a scouter; but
we seamen like our offing, and to go into action with nothing
in our minds, but the business before us—plain broadside
and broadside work, and no trees, or rocks, to thicken the
water.”
“And no Lord, too, I dare to say, if the truth were
known! Take my word for it, Master Cap, that no battle
is the worse fou't for having the Lord on your side. Look
at the head of the Big Sarpent, there; you can see the mark
of a knife all along by his left ear; now, nothing but a bullet
from this long rifle of mine, saved his scalp that day, for
it had fairly started, and half a minute more would have left
him without the war-lock. When the Mohican squeezes my
hand, and intermates that I befriended him in that matter, I
tell him, no; it was the Lord, who led me to the only spot
where execution could be done, or his necessity be made
known, on account of the smoke. Sartain when I got the
right position, I finished the affair of my own accord, for a
friend under the tomahawk is apt to make a man think quick,
and act at once, as was my case, or the Sarpent's spirit
would be hunting in the happy land of his people, at this very
moment.”
“Come, come, Pathfinder, this palaver is worse than being
skinned from stem to stern; we have but a few hours of sun,
and had better be drifting down this said current of yours,
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while we may. Magnet, dear, are you not ready to get
under way?”
Magnet started, blushed brightly, and made her preparations
for an immediate departure. Not a syllable of the
discourse just related had she heard, for Eau-douce, as young
Jasper was oftener called than any thing else, had been filling
her ears with a description of the yet distant port towards
which she was journeying, with accounts of her father, whom
she had not seen since a child, and with the manner of life
of those who lived in the frontier garrisons. Unconsciously,
she had become deeply interested, and her thoughts had been
too intently directed to these interesting matters, to allow any
of the less agreeable subjects discussed by those so near to
reach her ears. The bustle of departure put an end to the
conversation entirely, and the baggage of the scouts, or
guides, being trifling, in a few minutes, the whole party was
ready to proceed. As they were about to quit the spot, however,
to the surprise of even his fellow-guides, Pathfinder
collected a quantity of branches, and threw them upon the
embers of the fire, taking care even to see that some of the
wood was damp, in order to raise as dark and dense a smoke
as possible.
“When you can hide your trail, Jasper,” he said, “a
smoke at leaving an encampment may do good, instead of
harm. If there are a dozen Mingos within ten miles of us,
some on 'em are on the heights, or in the trees, looking out
for smokes; let them see this, and much good may it do
them. They are welcome to our leavings.”
“But may they not strike, and follow on our trail?” asked
the youth, whose interest in the hazard of his situation had
much increased, since the meeting with Magnet. “We shall
leave a broad path to the river.”
“The broader the better; when there, it will surpass Mingo
cunning, even, to say which way the canoe has gone; up
stream or down. Water is the only thing in natur' that will
thoroughly wash out a trail, and even water will not always
do it, when the scent is strong. Do you not see, Eau-douce,
that if any Mingos have seen our path below the falls, they
will strike off towards this smoke, and that they will naturally
conclude that they who began by going up stream, will
end by going up stream. If they know any thing, they now
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know a party is out from the fort, and it will exceed even
Mingo wit, to fancy that we have come up here, just for the
pleasure of going back again, and that, too, the same day,
and at the risk of our scalps.”
“Certainly,” added Jasper, who was talking apart with the
Pathfinder, as they moved towards the wind-row, “they cannot
know any thing about the serjeant's daughter, for the
greatest secrecy has been observed, on her account.”
“And they will learn nothing, here,” returned Pathfinder,
causing his companion to see that he trod with the utmost
care, on the impression left on the leaves, by the little foot of
Mabel, “unless this old salt-water fish has been taking his
niece about in the wind-row, lake a fa'n playing by the side
of the old doe.”
“Buck, you mean, Pathfinder.”
“Isn't he a queerity? — Now, I can consort with such a
sailor as yourself, Eau-douce, and find nothing very contrary
in our gifts, though yours belong to the lakes, and mine to
the woods. Harkee, Jasper,” continued the scout, laughing
in his noiseless manner; “suppose we try the temper of his
blade, and run him over the falls?”
“And what would be done with the pretty niece, in the
meanwhile?”
“Nay—nay—no harm shall come to her; she must walk
round the portage, at any rate; but you and I can try this
Atlantic oceaner, and then all parties will become better acquainted.
We shall find out whether his flint will strike fire;
and he may come to know something of frontier tricks.”
Young Jasper smiled, for he was not averse to fun, and
had been a little touched by Cap's superciliousness; but Mabel's
fair face, light agile form, and winning smiles, stood like a
shield between her uncle and the intended experiment.
“Perhaps the serjeant's daughter will be frightened,” he
said.
“Not she, if she has any of the serjeant's spirit in her.
She doesn't look like a skeary thing, at all. Leave it to me,
then, Eau-douce, and I will manage the affair alone.”
“Not you, Pathfinder; you would only drown both. If
the canoe goes over, I must go in it.”
“Well, have it so, then; shall we smoke the pipe of
agreement on the bargain?”
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Jasper laughed, nodded his head, by way of consent, and
then the subject was dropped, as the party had reached the
canoe, so often mentioned, and fewer words had determined
much greater things between the parties.
Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851 [1840], The pathfinder, or, The inland sea. Vol. I (Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia) [word count] [eaf068v1T].
