ingachgook and the latter's son Uncas follow Deerslayer hand
in hand, and make, next to the hero, the principal characters of
the story, the scene of which is laid near Lake Champlain during the
trouble between the French and English for the possession of Canada.

In _The Pathfinder_ the famous scout, under the name which gives the
title to the book, is carried still further in his adventurous career.
The scene is laid near Lake Ontario where Cooper spent some months
while in the navy. These three tales are not only the finest of the
series from a literary standpoint, but they illustrate as well the
life of those white men of the forest who lived as near to nature
as the Indian himself and whose deeds helped make the history of the
country in its beginnings.

_The Pioneers_ finds Leatherstocking an old hunter living on Otsego
Lake at the time of its first settlement by the whites. The character
was suggested by an old hunter of the regions who in Cooper's boyhood
came frequently to the door of his father's house to sell the game he
had killed. The hero is in this book called Natty Bumppo and the story
is one of the primitive life of the frontiersmen of that period.
Their occupations, interests and ambitions form the background to the
picture of Leatherstocking, the rustic philosopher, who has finished
the most active part of his career, and who has gathered from nature
some of her sweetest lessons. Many of the scenes in the book are
transcriptions from the actual life of those hardy pioneers who joined
Cooper's father in the settlement of Cooperstown, while the whole is
tinged with that tender reminiscence of the author's youth which sets
it apart from the rest though it is, perhaps, the least perfect story
of the series.

Leatherstocking closes his career in _The Prairie_, a novel of the
plains of the great West, whither he had gone to spend his last days.
It is the story of the lonely life of the trapper of those days,
whose love of solitude has led him far from the frontier, and whose
dignified death fitly closes his courageous life. It is supposed that
the actual experiences of Daniel Boone suggested this ending to the
series.

The story of the war of the frontiersmen with nature, with
circumstances and with the red man is told in these books. It is the
romance of real history and Leatherstocking was but the picture
of many a brave settler whose deeds were unrecorded and whose name
remains unknown. Side by side