among the leaves,"--here the Pathfinder laid his fingers lightly but
impressively on his companion's arm,--"I have seen it shed tears like
rain. There is a soul and a heart under that red skin, rely on it;
although they are a soul and a heart with gifts different from our own."

"No one who is acquainted with the chief ever doubted that."

"I _know_ it," returned the other proudly, "for I have consorted
with him in sorrow and in joy: in one I have found him a man, however
stricken; in the other, a chief who knows that the women of his tribe
are the most seemly in light merriment. But hist! It is too much like
the people of the settlements to pour soft speeches into another's ear;
and the Sarpent has keen senses. He knows I love him, and that I speak
well of him behind his back; but a Delaware has modesty in his inmost
natur', though he will brag like a sinner when tied to a stake."

The Serpent now reached the shore, directly in the front of his two
comrades, with whose precise position he must have been acquainted
before leaving the eastern side of the river, and rising from the water
he shook himself like a dog, and made the usual exclamation--"Hugh!"

CHAPTER VI.

These, as they change, Almighty Father, these,
Are but the varied God.
THOMSON.

As the chief landed he was met by the Pathfinder, who addressed him in
the language of the warrior's people: "Was it well done, Chingachgook,"
said he reproachfully, "to ambush a dozen Mingos alone? Killdeer seldom
fails me, it is true; but the Oswego makes a distant mark, and that
miscreant showed little more than his head and shoulders above the
bushes, and an onpractysed hand and eye might have failed. You should
have thought of this, chief--you should have thought of this!"

"The Great Serpent is a Mohican warrior--he sees only his enemies when
he is on the war-path, and his fathers have struck the Mingos from
behind, since the waters began to run."

"I know your gifts, I know your gifts, and respect them too. No man
shall hear me complain that a red-skin obsarved red-skin natur'. But
prudence as much becomes a warrior as valor; and had not the Iroquois
devils been looking after their friends who were in the water, a hot
trail they would have made of yourn."

"What is the Delaware about to do?" exclaimed Jasper, who observed at
that moment that the chief had suddenly left the Pathfinder and advanced
to the water's edge, apparently with an inte