n to Cape North, not to speak of this run on a bit of
fresh water, that if a man has a few dollars, and puts them in a chest
under lock and key, he is pretty certain to fasten up his heart in the
same till; and so I carry pretty much all I own in a belt round my
body, in order, as I say, to keep the vitals in the right place. D---me,
Pathfinder, if I think a man without a heart any better than a fish with
a hole in his air-bag."

"I don't know how that may be, Master Cap; but a man without a
conscience is but a poor creatur', take my word for it, as any one will
discover who has to do with a Mingo. I trouble myself but little with
dollars or half-joes, for these are the favoryte coin in this part of
the world; but I can easily believe, by what I've seen of mankind, that
if a man _has_ a chest filled with either, he may be said to lock up his
heart in the same box. I once hunted for two summers, during the last
peace, and I collected so much peltry that I found my right feelings
giving way to a craving after property; and if I have consarn in
marrying Mabel, it is that I may get to love such things too well, in
order to make her comfortable."

"You're a philosopher, that's clear, Pathfinder; and I don't know but
you're a Christian."

"I should be out of humor with the man that gainsayed the last, Master
Cap. I have not been Christianized by the Moravians, like so many of the
Delawares, it is true; but I hold to Christianity and white gifts. With
me, it is as on-creditable for a white man not to be a Christian as it
is for a red-skin not to believe in his happy hunting-grounds; indeed,
after allowing for difference in traditions, and in some variations
about the manner in which the spirit will be occupied after death, I
hold that a good Delaware is a good Christian, though he never saw a
Moravian; and a good Christian a good Delaware, so far as natur 'is
consarned. The Sarpent and I talk these matters over often, for he has a
hankerin' after Christianity--"

"The d---l he has!" interrupted Cap. "And what does he intend to do in a
church with all the scalps he takes?"

"Don't run away with a false idee, friend Cap, don't run away with a
false idee. These things are only skin-deep, and all depend on edication
and nat'ral gifts. Look around you at mankind, and tell me why you see a
red warrior here, a black one there, and white armies in another place?
All this, and a great deal more of the same kind that I could point