te
chief, it is nothing against the life of Le Subtil!"

"Le Renard is too brave to remember the hurts received in war, or the
hands that gave them!"

"Was it war, when the tired Indian rested at the sugar-tree to taste his
corn! who filled the bushes with creeping enemies! who drew the knife!
whose tongue was peace, while his heart was colored with blood! Did
Magua say that the hatchet was out of the ground, and that his hand had
dug it up?"

As Duncan dared not retort upon his accuser by reminding him of his own
premeditated treachery, and disdained to deprecate his resentment by any
words of apology, he remained silent. Magua seemed also content to rest
the controversy as well as all further communication there, for he
resumed the leaning attitude against the rock, from which, in momentary
energy, he had arisen. But the cry of "La Longue Carabine" was renewed
the instant the impatient savages perceived that the short dialogue was
ended.

"You hear," said Magua, with stubborn indifference; "the red Hurons call
for the life of 'The Long Rifle,' or they will have the blood of them
that keep him hid!"

"He is gone--escaped; he is far beyond their reach."

Renard smiled with cold contempt, as he answered,--

"When the white man dies, he thinks he is at peace; but the redmen know
how to torture even the ghosts of their enemies. Where is his body? Let
the Hurons see his scalp!"

"He is not dead, but escaped."

Magua shook his head incredulously.

"Is he a bird, to spread his wings; or is he a fish, to swim without
air! The white chief reads in his books, and he believes the Hurons are
fools!"

"Though no fish, The Long Rifle can swim. He floated down the stream
when the powder was all burnt, and when the eyes of the Hurons were
behind a cloud."

"And why did the white chief stay?" demanded the still incredulous
Indian. "Is he a stone that goes to the bottom, or does the scalp burn
his head?"

"That I am not a stone, your dead comrade, who fell into the falls,
might answer, were the life still in him," said the provoked young man,
using, in his anger, that boastful language which was most likely to
excite the admiration of an Indian. "The white man thinks none but
cowards desert their women."

Magua muttered a few words, inaudibly, between his teeth, before he
continued, aloud,--

"Can the Delawares swim, too, as well as crawl in the bushes? Where is
Le Gros Serpent?"

Duncan, who perceived by the use