awares, and send these greedy and lying Mohawks and
Oneidas, with their six nations of varlets, where in nature they belong,
among the French!"

"We should then exchange a warlike for a useless friend! I have heard
that the Delawares have laid aside the hatchet, and are content to be
called women!"

"Ay, shame on the Hollanders[10] and Iroquois, who circumvented them by
their deviltries, into such a treaty! But I have known them for twenty
years, and I call him liar, that says cowardly blood runs in the veins
of a Delaware. You have driven their tribes from the sea-shore, and
would now believe what their enemies say, that you may sleep at night
upon an easy pillow. No, no; to me, every Indian who speaks a foreign
tongue is an Iroquois, whether the castle[11] of his tribe be in Canada,
or be in New York."

Heyward, perceiving that the stubborn adherence of the scout to the
cause of his friends the Delawares or Mohicans, for they were branches
of the same numerous people, was likely to prolong a useless discussion,
changed the subject.

"Treaty or no treaty, I know full well, that your two companions are
brave and cautious warriors! have they heard or seen anything of our
enemies?"

"An Indian is a mortal to be felt afore he is seen," returned the scout,
ascending the rock, and throwing the deer carelessly down. "I trust to
other signs than such as come in at the eye, when I am outlying on the
trail of the Mingos."

"Do your ears tell you that they have traced our retreat?"

"I should be sorry to think they had, though this is a spot that stout
courage might hold for a smart skrimmage. I will not deny, however, but
the horses cowered when I passed them, as though they scented the
wolves; and a wolf is a beast that is apt to hover about an Indian
ambushment, craving the offals of the deer the savages kill."

"You forget the buck at your feet! or, may we not owe their visit to the
dead colt? Ha! what noise is that?"

"Poor Miriam!" murmured the stranger; "thy foal was foreordained to
become a prey to ravenous beasts!" Then, suddenly lifting up his voice,
amid the eternal din of the waters, he sang aloud,--

"First born of Egypt, smite did He,
Of mankind, and of beast also;
O, Egypt! wonders sent 'midst thee,
On Pharaoh and his servants too!"

"The death of the colt sits heavy on the heart of its owner," said the
scout; "but it's a good sign to see a man account upon his dumb friends.
He has the relig