be necessary to traverse the forest for many weary
leagues, each step of which was carrying him farther from the scene of
the war, and, consequently, from the post, not only of honor, but of
duty.

Cora alone remembered the parting injunctions of the scout, and whenever
an opportunity offered, she stretched forth her arm to bend aside the
twigs that met her hands. But the vigilance of the Indians rendered this
act of precaution both difficult and dangerous. She was often defeated
in her purpose, by encountering their watchful eyes, when it became
necessary to feign an alarm she did not feel, and occupy the limb by
some gesture of feminine apprehension. Once, and once only, was she
completely successful; when she broke down the bough of a large sumach,
and, by a sudden thought, let her glove fall at the same instant. This
sign, intended for those that might follow, was observed by one of her
conductors, who restored the glove, broke the remaining branches of the
bush in such a manner that it appeared to proceed from the struggling of
some beast in its branches, and then laid his hand on his tomahawk, with
a look so significant, that it put an effectual end to these stolen
memorials of their passage.

As there were horses, to leave the prints of their footsteps, in both
bands of the Indians, this interruption cut off any probable hopes of
assistance being conveyed through the means of their trail.

Heyward would have ventured a remonstrance, had there been anything
encouraging in the gloomy reserve of Magua. But the savage, during all
this time, seldom turned to look at his followers, and never spoke. With
the sun for his only guide, or aided by such blind marks as are only
known to the sagacity of a native, he held his way along the barrens of
pine, through occasional little fertile vales, across brooks and
rivulets, and over undulating hills, with the accuracy of instinct, and
nearly with the directness of a bird. He never seemed to hesitate.
Whether the path was hardly distinguishable, whether it disappeared, or
whether it lay beaten and plain before him, made no sensible difference
in his speed or certainty. It seemed as if fatigue could not affect him.
Whenever the eyes of the wearied travellers rose from the decayed leaves
over which they trod, his dark form was to be seen glancing among the
stems of the trees in front, his head immovably fastened in a forward
position, with the light plume on his crest flutterin