ced himself deliberately at his
elbow: "there are suppressed noises on the plain which may show that
Montcalm has not yet entirely deserted his conquest."

"Then ears are better than eyes," said the undisturbed scout, who,
having just deposited a portion of bear between his grinders, spoke
thick and slow, like one whose mouth was doubly occupied. "I, myself,
saw him caged in Ty, with all his host; for your Frenchers, when they
have done a clever thing, like to get back, and have a dance, or a
merry-making, with the women over their success."

"I know not. An Indian seldom sleeps in war, and plunder may keep a
Huron here after his tribe has departed. It would be well to extinguish
the fire, and have a watch--listen! you hear the noise I mean!"

"An Indian more rarely lurks about the graves. Though ready to slay, and
not over-regardful of the means, he is commonly content with the scalp,
unless when blood is hot, and temper up; but after the spirit is once
fairly gone, he forgets his enmity, and is willing to let the dead find
their natural rest. Speaking of spirits, Major, are you of opinion that
the heaven of a redskin and of us whites will be one and the same?"

"No doubt--no doubt. I thought I heard it again! or was it the rustling
of the leaves in the top of the beech?"

"For my own part," continued Hawkeye, turning his face, for a moment, in
the direction indicated by Heyward, but with a vacant and careless
manner, "I believe that paradise is ordained for happiness; and that men
will be indulged in it according to their dispositions and gifts. I
therefore judge that a redskin is not far from the truth when he
believes he is to find them glorious hunting-grounds of which his
traditions tell; nor, for that matter, do I think it would be any
disparagement to a man without a cross to pass his time--"

"You hear it again?" interrupted Duncan.

"Ay, ay; when food is scarce, and when food is plenty, a wolf grows
bold," said the unmoved scout. "There would be picking, too, among the
skins of the devils, if there was light and time for the sport. But,
concerning the life that is to come, major: I have heard preachers say,
in the settlements, that heaven was a place of rest. Now men's minds
differ as to their ideas of enjoyment. For myself, and I say it with
reverence to the ordering of Providence, it would be no great indulgence
to be kept shut up in those mansions of which they preach, having a
natural longing for mo