"The skulking reptyle brought it on himself," muttered Pathfinder sternly, as, dropping the butt of his rifle, he carefully commenced reloading it."Chingachgook and Ihave consorted together since we were boys, and have fi't in company on the Horican, the Mohawk, the Ontario, and all the other bloody passes between the country of the Frenchers and our own; and did the foolish knave believe that I would stand by and see my best friend cut off in an ambushment?""We have served the Sarpent as good a turn as he served us.Those rascals are troubled, Pathfinder, and are falling back into their covers, since they find we can reach them across the river.""The shot is no great matter, Jasper, no great matter.
Ask any of the 60th, and they can tell you what Killdeer can do, and has done, and that, too, when the bullets were flying about our heads like hailstones.No, no! this is no great matter, and the unthoughtful vagabond drew it down on himself.""Is that a dog, or a deer, swimming towards this shore?"Pathfinder started, for sure enough an object was cross-ing the stream, above the rift, towards which, however, it was gradually setting by the force of the current.Asecond look satisfied both the observers that it was a man, and an Indian, though so concealed as at first to render it doubtful.Some stratagem was apprehended, and the closest attention was given to the movements of the stranger.
"He is pushing something before him as he swims, and his head resembles a drifting bush," said Jasper.
"'Tis Indian devilry, boy; but Christian honesty shall circumvent their arts."As the man slowly approached, the observers began to doubt the accuracy of their first impressions, and it was only when two-thirds of the stream were passed that the truth was really known.
"The Big Sarpent, as I live!" exclaimed Pathfinder, looking at his companion, and laughing until the tears came into his eyes with pure delight at the success of the artifice."He has tied bushes to his head, so as to hide it, put the horn on top, lashed the rifle to that bit of log he is pushing before him, and has come over to join his friends.Ah's me! The times and times that he and Ihave cut such pranks, right in the teeth of Mingos raging for our blood, in the great thoroughfare round and about Ty!""It may not be the Serpent after all, Pathfinder; I can see no feature that I remember.""Feature! Who looks for features in an Indian? No, no, boy; 'tis the paint that speaks, and none but a Dela-ware would wear that paint: them are his colors, Jasper, just as your craft on the lake wears St.George's Cross, and the Frenchers set their tablecloths to fluttering in the wind, with all the stains of fish-bones and venison steaks upon them.Now, you see the eye, lad, and it is the eye of a chief.But, Eau-douce, fierce as it is in battle, and glassy as it looks from among the leaves," -- here the Path-finder laid his fingers lightly but impressively on his com-panion's arm, -- "I have seen it shed tears like rain.There is a soul and a heart under that red skin, rely on it; al-though they are a soul and a heart with gifts different from our own.""No one who is acquainted with the chief ever doubted that.""I _know_ it," returned the other proudly, "for I have consorted with him in sorrow and in joy: in one I have found him a man, however stricken; in the other, a chief who knows that the women of his tribe are the most seemly in light merriment.But hist! It is too much like the people of the settlements to pour soft speeches into an-other's ear; and the Sarpent has keen senses.He knows I love him, and that I speak well of him behind his back;but a Delaware has modesty in his inmost natur', though he will brag like a sinner when tied to a stake."The Serpent now reached the shore, directly in the front of his two comrades, with whose precise position he must have been acquainted before leaving the eastern side of the river, and rising from the water he shook himself like a dog, and made the usual exclamation -- "Hugh!"
