"Ah! you want the flavor that one gets by habit; the time was when I
liked it as little as yourself; but I have come to my taste, and I now
crave it, as a deer does the licks*. Your high-spiced wines are not
better liked than a red-skin relishes this water; especially when his
natur' is ailing. But Uncas has made his fire, and it is time we think
of eating, for our journey is long, and all before us."

* Many of the animals of the American forests resort to
those spots where salt springs are found. These are called
"licks" or "salt licks," in the language of the country,
from the circumstance that the quadruped is often obliged to
lick the earth, in order to obtain the saline particles.
These licks are great places of resort with the hunters, who
waylay their game near the paths that lead to them.

Interrupting the dialogue by this abrupt transition, the scout had
instant recourse to the fragments of food which had escaped the voracity
of the Hurons. A very summary process completed the simple cookery, when
he and the Mohicans commenced their humble meal, with the silence and
characteristic diligence of men who ate in order to enable themselves to
endure great and unremitting toil.

When this necessary, and, happily, grateful duty had been performed,
each of the foresters stooped and took a long and parting draught at
that solitary and silent spring*, around which and its sister fountains,
within fifty years, the wealth, beauty and talents of a hemisphere were
to assemble in throngs, in pursuit of health and pleasure. Then Hawkeye
announced his determination to proceed. The sisters resumed their
saddles; Duncan and David grapsed their rifles, and followed on
footsteps; the scout leading the advance, and the Mohicans bringing up
the rear. The whole party moved swiftly through the narrow path, toward
the north, leaving the healing waters to mingle unheeded with the
adjacent brooks and the bodies of the dead to fester on the neighboring
mount, without the rites of sepulture; a fate but too common to the
warriors of the woods to excite either commiseration or comment.

* The scene of the foregoing incidents is on the spot where
the village of Ballston now stands; one of the two principal
watering places of America.

CHAPTER 13

"I'll seek a readier path."
--Parnell

The route taken by Hawkeye lay across those sandy plains, relived by
occasional val