o the whispering tones used by the others; "spare the foal
of Miriam! it is the comely offspring of a faithful dam, and would
willingly injure naught."

"When men struggle for the single life God has given them," said the
scout, sternly, "even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the
wood. If you speak again, I shall leave you to the mercy of the Maquas!
Draw to your arrow's head, Uncas; we have no time for second blows."

The low, muttering sounds of his threatening voice were still audible,
when the wounded foal, first rearing on its hinder legs, plunged forward
to its knees. It was met by Chingachgook, whose knife passed across its
throat quicker than thought, and then precipitating the motions of the
struggling victim, he dashed into the river, down whose stream it glided
away, gasping audibly for breath with its ebbing life. This deed of
apparent cruelty, but of real necessity, fell upon the spirits of the
travelers like a terrific warning of the peril in which they stood,
heightened as it was by the calm though steady resolution of the actors
in the scene. The sisters shuddered and clung closer to each other,
while Heyward instinctively laid his hand on one of the pistols he had
just drawn from their holsters, as he placed himself between his charge
and those dense shadows that seemed to draw an impenetrable veil before
the bosom of the forest.

The Indians, however, hesitated not a moment, but taking the bridles,
they led the frightened and reluctant horses into the bed of the river.

At a short distance from the shore they turned, and were soon concealed
by the projection of the bank, under the brow of which they moved, in
a direction opposite to the course of the waters. In the meantime, the
scout drew a canoe of bark from its place of concealment beneath some
low bushes, whose branches were waving with the eddies of the current,
into which he silently motioned for the females to enter. They complied
without hesitation, though many a fearful and anxious glance was thrown
behind them, toward the thickening gloom, which now lay like a dark
barrier along the margin of the stream.

So soon as Cora and Alice were seated, the scout, without regarding the
element, directed Heyward to support one side of the frail vessel,
and posting himself at the other, they bore it up against the stream,
followed by the dejected owner of the dead foal. In this manner they
proceeded, for many rods, in a silence that was