“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 the buck to
shelter, and are following on 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 his former composure.
“Hawkeye, they are your brothers; speak to them.”
“That I will, 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 trampling that I mistook for the falls—and—but
here they come themselves; God keep them from the
Iroquois!”
“Well go thy way:
thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee
for this injury.”—Midsummer 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 travelers, who had produced a surprise so unusual
in the depths of the forest, advanced slowly toward
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 forefinger 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.
“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?”
