ped his charger into
the pathway, in front of his companion.

"What, then, may be our distance from Fort Edward?" demanded a new
speaker; "the place you advise us to seek we left this morning, and our
destination is the head of the lake."

"Then you must have lost your eyesight afore losing your way, for the
road across the portage is cut to a good two rods, and is as grand a
path, I calculate, as any that runs into London, or even before the
palace of the king himself."

"We will not dispute concerning the excellence of the passage," returned
Heyward, smiling; for, as the reader has anticipated, it was he. "It is
enough, for the present, that we trusted to an Indian guide to take
us by a nearer, though blinder path, and that we are deceived in his
knowledge. In plain words, we know not where we are."

"An Indian lost in the woods!" said the scout, shaking his head
doubtingly; "When the sun is scorching the tree tops, and the water
courses are full; when the moss on every beech he sees will tell him in
what quarter the north star will shine at night. The woods are full
of deer-paths which run to the streams and licks, places well known to
everybody; nor have the geese done their flight to the Canada waters
altogether! 'Tis strange that an Indian should be lost atwixt Horican
and the bend in the river! Is he a Mohawk?"

"Not by birth, though adopted in that tribe; I think his birthplace was
farther north, and he is one of those you call a Huron."

"Hugh!" exclaimed the two companions of the scout, who had continued
until this part of the dialogue, seated immovable, and apparently
indifferent to what passed, but who now sprang to their feet with an
activity and interest that had evidently got the better of their reserve
by surprise.

"A Huron!" repeated the sturdy scout, once more shaking his head in
open distrust; "they are a thievish race, nor do I care by whom they are
adopted; you can never make anything of them but skulls and vagabonds.
Since you trusted yourself to the care of one of that nation, I only
wonder that you have not fallen in with more."

"Of that there is little danger, since William Henry is so many miles
in our front. You forget that I have told you our guide is now a Mohawk,
and that he serves with our forces as a friend."

"And I tell you that he who is born a Mingo will die a Mingo," returned
the other positively. "A Mohawk! No, give me a Delaware or a Mohican
for honesty; and when they