e
bottom, however, a brave man, and had often faced death with coolness,
though never in the frightful forms in which it presented itself under
the brief but graphic picture of his companion. It was too late to
retreat; and he determined to put the best face on the matter, though he
could not avoid muttering inwardly a few curses on the indiscretion with
which his brother-in-law, the Sergeant, had led him into his present
dilemma.

"I make no doubt, Master Pathfinder," he answered, when these thoughts
had found time to glance through his mind, "that we shall reach port in
safety. What distance may we now be from the fort?"

"Little more than fifteen miles; and swift miles too, as the river runs,
if the Mingos let us go clear."

"And I suppose the woods will stretch along starboard and larboard, as
heretofore?"

"Anan?"

"I mean that we shall have to pick our way through these damned trees."

"Nay, nay, you will go in the canoe, and the Oswego has been cleared of
its flood-wood by the troops. It will be floating down stream, and that,
too, with a swift current."

"And what the devil is to prevent these minks of which you speak from
shooting us as we double a headland, or are busy in steering clear of
the rocks?"

"The Lord!--He who has so often helped others in greater difficulties.
Many and many is the time that my head would have been stripped of
hair, skin, and all, hadn't the Lord fi't of my side. I never go into a
skrimmage, friend mariner, without thinking of this great ally, who can
do more in battle than all the battalions of the 60th, were they brought
into a single line."

"Ay, ay, this may do well enough for a scouter; but we seamen like our
offing, and to go into action with nothing in our minds but the business
before us--plain broadside and broadside work, and no trees or rocks to
thicken the water."

"And no Lord too, I dare to say, if the truth were known. Take my word
for it, Master Cap, that no battle is the worse fi't for having the Lord
on your side. Look at the head of the Big Sarpent, there; you can see
the mark of a knife all along by his left ear: now nothing but a bullet
from this long rifle of mine saved his scalp that day; for it had
fairly started, and half a minute more would have left him without
the war-lock. When the Mohican squeezes my hand, and intermates that I
befriended him in that matter, I tell him no; it was the Lord who led me
to the only spot where execution could b