purpose, and an eye so calm, that
nothing but long and inveterate practice could enable him to maintain.
The sensations produced in the minds of even the white men were
different, though uniformly sorrowful. One, whose gray locks and
furrowed lineaments, blending with a martial air and tread, betrayed, in
spite of the disguise of a woodsman's dress, a man long experienced in
scenes of war, was not ashamed to groan aloud, whenever a spectacle of
more than usual horror came under his view. The young man at his elbow
shuddered, but seemed to suppress his feelings in tenderness to his
companion. Of them all, the straggler who brought up the rear appeared
alone to betray his real thoughts, without fear of observation or dread
of consequences. He gazed at the most appalling sight with eyes and
muscles that knew not how to waver, but with execrations so bitter and
deep as to denote how much he denounced the crime of his enemies.

The reader will perceive at once, in these respective characters, the
Mohicans, and their white friend, the scout; together with Munro and
Heyward. It was, in truth, the father in quest of his children, attended
by the youth who felt so deep a stake in their happiness, and those
brave and trusty foresters, who had already proved their skill and
fidelity through the trying scenes related.

When Uncas, who moved in front, had reached the centre of the plain, he
raised a cry that drew his companions in a body to the spot. The young
warrior had halted over a group of females who lay in a cluster, a
confused mass of dead. Notwithstanding the revolting horror of the
exhibition, Munro and Heyward flew towards the festering heap,
endeavoring, with a love that no unseemliness could extinguish, to
discover whether any vestiges of those they sought were to be seen among
the tattered and many-colored garments. The father and lover found
instant relief in the search; though each was condemned again to
experience the misery of an uncertainty that was hardly less
insupportable than the most revolting truth. They were standing, silent
and thoughtful, around the melancholy pile, when the scout approached.
Eying the sad spectacle with an angry countenance, the sturdy woodsman,
for the first time since his entering the plain, spoke intelligibly and
aloud:--

"I have been on many a shocking field, and have followed a trail of
blood for many miles," he said, "but never have I found the hand of the
devil so plain as it