ries.

The story of Leatherstocking begins in _The Deerslayer_, though it was
not written until twenty years after the publication of _The Pioneers_.
The scene was laid on Otsego Lake, and the character of Leatherstocking
was drawn as that of a young scout just entering upon manhood. The next
year, 1841, came _The Pathfinder_, having for its background the shores
of Lake Ontario, with which Cooper had become familiar during the winter
there in the service of the navy.

In these two books Cooper reached the highest point of his art.
Leatherstocking appears in _The Deerslayer_ as a young man full of the
promise of a noble manhood. And this ideal character is developed
through a succession of stirring adventures, the like of which are to be
found only in the pages of Scott. Side by side with Leatherstocking
stand those pictures of Indian character, which became so famous that
the Indian of that day has passed into history as represented by Cooper.

_The Pathfinder_ carries Leatherstocking through some of the most
exciting episodes of his adventurous career, and belongs to the same
part of his life as _The Last of the Mohicans_, published sixteen years
before, the scene of which is laid near Lake Champlain. _The Last of the
Mohicans_ takes rank with _The Deerslayer_ and _The Pathfinder_ in
representing Cooper at his best. In these three novels we see
Leatherstocking as a man in the prime of life battling with the stirring
events that were making the history of the country. All the story of the
war of the white man with nature, with circumstances, and with his red
brother in civilizing the frontier, is told in these books. It is the
romance of real history, and Leatherstocking had his prototype in many a
brave frontiersman whose deeds were unrecorded, and whose name was never
known beyond his own little circle of friends.

In _The Pioneers_ Leatherstocking has become an old man who has sought a
home in the forest to avoid the noise and strife of civilized life, and
he closes his career in _The Prairie_, a novel of the plains of the
great West, whither the old man has gone to spend his last days. It is
the story of a lonely life of the prairie-hunter of those days, whose
love for solitude has led him far from even the borders of the frontier,
and whose dignified death is a fitting ending to his noble and
courageous life. It is supposed that this end to Leatherstocking's
career was suggested to Cooper by the ever-famous Dan