nfine them to a place where they might become
easy victims to the enterprise of the warrior who had mounted the tree.

"This must be looked to," said the scout, glancing about him with
an anxious eye. "Uncas, call up your father; we have need of all our
we'pons to bring the cunning varmint from his roost."

The signal was instantly given; and, before Hawkeye had reloaded his
rifle, they were joined by Chingachgook. When his son pointed out to the
experienced warrior the situation of their dangerous enemy, the
usual exclamatory "hugh" burst from his lips; after which, no further
expression of surprise or alarm was suffered to escape him. Hawkeye and
the Mohicans conversed earnestly together in Delaware for a few moments,
when each quietly took his post, in order to execute the plan they had
speedily devised.

The warrior in the oak had maintained a quick, though ineffectual fire,
from the moment of his discovery. But his aim was interrupted by the
vigilance of his enemies, whose rifles instantaneously bore on any
part of his person that was left exposed. Still his bullets fell in the
center of the crouching party. The clothes of Heyward, which rendered
him peculiarly conspicuous, were repeatedly cut, and once blood was
drawn from a slight wound in his arm.

At length, emboldened by the long and patient watchfulness of his
enemies, the Huron attempted a better and more fatal aim. The quick eyes
of the Mohicans caught the dark line of his lower limbs incautiously
exposed through the thin foliage, a few inches from the trunk of the
tree. Their rifles made a common report, when, sinking on his wounded
limb, part of the body of the savage came into view. Swift as thought,
Hawkeye seized the advantage, and discharged his fatal weapon into the
top of the oak. The leaves were unusually agitated; the dangerous rifle
fell from its commanding elevation, and after a few moments of vain
struggling, the form of the savage was seen swinging in the wind,
while he still grasped a ragged and naked branch of the tree with hands
clenched in desperation.

"Give him, in pity, give him the contents of another rifle," cried
Duncan, turning away his eyes in horror from the spectacle of a fellow
creature in such awful jeopardy.

"Not a karnel!" exclaimed the obdurate Hawkeye; "his death is certain,
and we have no powder to spare, for Indian fights sometimes last for
days; 'tis their scalps or ours! and God, who made us, has put into our
na