"We must all die first," answered the youth, a generous color mounting
to his temples; "Mabel and Arrowhead's wife may lie down in the canoes,
while we do our duty, like men, on our feet."

"Ay, you are active at the paddle and the oar, Eau-douce, I will allow,
but an accursed Mingo is more active at his mischief; the canoes are
swift, but a rifle bullet is swifter."

"It is the business of men, engaged as we have been by a confiding
father, to run this risk--"

"But it is not their business to overlook prudence."

"Prudence! a man may carry his prudence so far as to forget his
courage."

The group was standing on the narrow strand, the Pathfinder leaning on
his rifle, the butt of which rested on the gravelly beach, while both
his hands clasped the barrel at the height of his own shoulders. As
Jasper threw out this severe and unmerited imputation, the deep red of
his comrade's face maintained its hue unchanged, though the young man
perceived that the fingers grasped the iron of the gun with the tenacity
of a vice. Here all betrayal of emotion ceased.

"You are young and hot-headed," returned Pathfinder, with a dignity that
impressed his listeners with a keen sense of his moral superiority; "but
my life has been passed among dangers of this sort, and my experience
and gifts are not to be mastered by the impatience of a boy. As for
courage, Jasper, I will not send back an angry and unmeaning word to
meet an angry and an unmeaning word; for I know that you are true in
your station and according to your knowledge; but take the advice of one
who faced the Mingos when you were a child, and know that their cunning
is easier sarcumvented by prudence than outwitted by foolishness."

"I ask your pardon, Pathfinder," said the repentant Jasper, eagerly
grasping the hand that the other permitted him to seize; "I ask your
pardon, humbly and sincerely. 'Twas a foolish, as well as wicked thing
to hint of a man whose heart, in a good cause, is known to be as firm as
the rocks on the lake shore."

For the first time the color deepened on the cheek of the Pathfinder,
and the solemn dignity which he had assumed, under a purely natural
impulse, disappeared in the expression of the earnest simplicity
inherent in all his feelings. He met the grasp of his young friend
with a squeeze as cordial as if no chord had jarred between them, and a
slight sternness that had gathered about his eye disappeared in a look
of natural kindness.

"'