Often have we passed through blood and strife together, but I was afraid it was never to be so again."
"Hugh!
The Mingos are squaws!
Three of their scalps hang at my girdle.
They do not know how to strike the Great Serpent of the Delawares.
Their hearts have no blood; and their thoughts are on their return path, across the waters of the Great Lake."
"Have you been among them, chief? and what has become of the warrior who was in the river?"
"He has turned into a fish, and lies at the bottom with the eels!
Let his brothers bait their hooks for him.
Pathfinder, I have counted the enemy, and have touched their rifles."
"Ah, I thought he would be venturesome!" exclaimed the guide in English.
"The risky fellow has been in the midst of them, and has brought us back their whole history.
Speak, Chingachgook, and I will make our friends as knowing as ourselves."
The Delaware now related in a low earnest manner the substance of all his discoveries, since he was last seen struggling with his foe in the river.
Of the fate of his antagonist he said no more, it not being usual for a warrior to boast in his more direct and useful narratives.
As soon as he had conquered in that fearful strife, however, he swam to the eastern shore, landed with caution, and wound his way in amongst the Iroquois, concealed by the darkness, undetected, and, in the main, even unsuspected.
Once, indeed, he had been questioned; but answering that he was Arrowhead, no further inquiries were made.
By the passing remarks, he soon ascertained that the party was out expressly to intercept Mabel and her uncle, concerning whose rank, however, they had evidently been deceived.
He also ascertained enough to justify the suspicion that Arrowhead had betrayed them to their enemies, for some motive that it was not now easy to reach, as he had not yet received the reward of his services.
Pathfinder communicated no more of this intelligence to his companions than he thought might relieve their apprehensions, intimating, at the same time, that now was the moment for exertion, the Iroquois not having yet entirely recovered from the confusion created by their losses.
"We shall find them at the rift, I make no manner of doubt," continued he; "and there it will be our fate to pass them, or to fall into their hands.
The distance to the garrison will then be so short, that I have been thinking of a plan of landing with Mabel myself, that I may take her in, by some of the by-ways, and leave the canoes to their chances in the rapids."
"It will never succeed, Pathfinder," eagerly interrupted Jasper.
"Mabel is not strong enough to tramp the woods in a night like this. Put her in my skiff, and I will lose my life, or carry her through the rift safely, dark as it is."
"No doubt you will, lad; no one doubts your willingness to do anything to serve the Sergeant's daughter; but it must be the eye of Providence, and not your own, that will take you safely through the Oswego rift in a night like this."
"And who will lead her safely to the garrison if she land?
Is not the night as dark on shore as on the water? or do you think I know less of my calling than you know of yours?"
"Spiritedly said, lad; but if I should lose my way in the dark -- and I believe no man can say truly that such a thing ever yet happened to me -- but, if I should lose my way, no other harm would come of it than to pass a night in the forest; whereas a false turn of the paddle, or a broad sheer of the canoe, would put you and the young woman into the river, out of which it is more than probable the Sergeant's daughter would never come alive."
"I will leave it to Mabel herself; I am certain that she will feel more secure in the canoe."
"I have great confidence in you both," answered the girl; "and have no doubts that either will do all he can to prove to my father how much he values him; but I confess I should not like to quit the canoe, with the certainty we have of there being enemies like those we have seen in the forest. But my uncle can decide for me in this matter."
"I have no liking for the woods," said Cap, "while one has a clear drift like this on the river.
Besides, Master Pathfinder, to say nothing of the savages, you overlook the sharks."
"Sharks!
Who ever heard of sharks in the wilderness?"
"Ay!
Sharks, or bears, or wolves -- no matter what you call a thing, so it has the mind and power to bite."
"Lord, lord, man!
Do you dread any creatur' that is to be found in the American forest?
A catamount is a skeary animal, I will allow, but then it is nothing in the hands of a practysed hunter.
Talk of the Mingos and their devilries if you will; but do not raise a false alarm about bears and wolves."
"Ay, ay, Master Pathfinder, this is all well enough for you, who probably know the name of every creature you would meet.
Use is everything, and it makes a man bold when he might otherwise be bashful.
I have known seamen in the low latitudes swim for hours at a time among sharks fifteen or twenty feet long."
"This is extraordinary!" exclaimed Jasper, who had not yet acquired that material part of his trade, the ability to spin a yarn.
"I have always heard that it was certain death to venture in the water among sharks."
"I forgot to say, that the lads always took capstan-bars, or gunners' handspikes, or crows with them, to rap the beasts over the noses if they got to be troublesome.
No, no, I have no liking for bears and wolves, though a whale, in my eye, is very much the same sort of fish as a red herring after it is dried and salted.
Mabel and I had better stick to the canoe."
"Mabel would do well to change canoes," added Jasper.
"This of mine is empty, and even Pathfinder will allow that my eye is surer than his own on the water."