ches was again faintly heard, and the Pathfinder fancied that the
sound of smothered voices reached him.

"I may be mistaken," he said, "for the thoughts often fancy what the
heart wishes; but these were notes like the low tones of the Delaware."

"Do the dead of the savages ever walk?" demanded Cap.

"Ay, and run too, in their happy hunting-grounds, but nowhere else. A
red-skin finishes with the 'arth, after the breath quits the body. It
is not one of his gifts to linger around his wigwam when his hour has
passed."

"I see some object on the water," whispered Mabel, whose eye had not
ceased to dwell on the body of gloom, with close intensity, since the
disappearance of Jasper.

"It is the canoe," returned the guide, greatly relieved. "All must be
safe, or we should have heard from the lad."

In another minute the two canoes, which became visible to those they
carried only as they drew near each other, again floated side by side,
and the form of Jasper was recognized at the stern of his own boat. The
figure of a second man was seated in the bow; and, as the young sailor
so wielded his paddle as to bring the face of his companion near the
eyes of the Pathfinder and Mabel, they both recognized the person of the
Delaware.

"Chingachgook--my brother!" said the guide in the dialect of the other's
people, a tremor shaking his voice that betrayed the strength of his
feelings. "Chief of the Mohicans! My heart is very glad. 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 th