_ve looks, and be on the alart. 'Twould grieve me to the heart
did any harm befall either of you."

"And _you_, Deerslayer!" exclaimed Judith, turning her handsome face
from the loop, to bestow a gracious and grateful look on the young man;
"do _you_ 'keep close' and have a proper care that the savages do not
catch a glimpse of you! A bullet might be as fatal to you as to one of
us, and the blow that you felt would be felt by all."

"No fear of me, Judith--no fear of me, my good gal. Do not look
this-a-way, although you look so pleasant and comely, but keep your
eyes on the rock and the shore and the--"

Deerslayer was interrupted by a slight exclamation from the girl, who,
in obedience to his hurried gestures, as much as in obedience to his
words, had immediately bent her looks again in the opposite direction.

"What is't?--what is't, Judith?" he hastily demanded. "Is any thing to
be seen?"

"There is a man on the rock!--an Indian warrior in his paint, and
armed!"

"Where does he wear his hawk's feather?" eagerly added Deerslayer,
relaxing his hold of the line, in readiness to drift nearer to the
place of rendezvous. "Is it fast to the warlock, or does he carry it
above the left ear?"

"'Tis as you say, above the left ear; he smiles, too, and mutters the
word 'Mohican.'"

"God be praised, 'tis the Sarpent at last!" exclaimed the young man,
suffering the line to slip through his hands until, hearing a light
bound in the other end of the craft, he instantly checked the rope and
began to haul it in again under the assurance that his object was
effected.

At that moment the door of the cabin was opened hastily, and a warrior
darting through the little room stood at Deerslayer's side, simply
uttering the exclamation "Hugh!" At the next instant Judith and Hetty
shrieked, and the air was filled with the yell of twenty savages, who
came leaping through the branches down the bank, some actually falling
headlong into the water in their haste.

"Pull, Deerslayer," cried Judith, hastily barring the door, in order to
prevent an inroad by the passage through which the Delaware had just
entered; "pull for life and death--the lake is full of savages wading
after us!"

The young men--for Chingachgook immediately came to his friend's
assistance--needed no second bidding, but they applied themselves to
their task in a way that showed how urgent they deemed the occasion.
The great difficulty was in suddenly overcoming