As the last foot
touched the rock, the canoe whirled from its station, when the tall form
of the scout was seen, for an instant, gliding above the waters, before
it disappeared in the impenetrable darkness that rested on the bed of
the river. Left by their guide, the travelers remained a few minutes in
helpless ignorance, afraid even to move along the broken rocks, lest a
false step should precipitate them down some one of the many deep and
roaring caverns, into which the water seemed to tumble, on every side
of them. Their suspense, however, was soon relieved; for, aided by the
skill of the natives, the canoe shot back into the eddy, and floated
again at the side of the low rock, before they thought the scout had
even time to rejoin his companions.

"We are now fortified, garrisoned, and provisioned," cried Heyward
cheerfully, "and may set Montcalm and his allies at defiance. How, now,
my vigilant sentinel, can see anything of those you call the Iroquois,
on the main land!"

"I call them Iroquois, because to me every native, who speaks a foreign
tongue, is accounted an enemy, though he may pretend to serve the king!
If Webb wants faith and honesty in an Indian, let him bring out the
tribes of the Delawares, and send these greedy and lying Mohawks and
Oneidas, with their six nations of varlets, where in nature they belong,
among the French!"

"We should then exchange a warlike for a useless friend! I have heard
that the Delawares have laid aside the hatchet, and are content to be
called women!"

"Aye, shame on the Hollanders and Iroquois, who circumvented them by
their deviltries, into such a treaty! But I have known them for twenty
years, and I call him liar that says cowardly blood runs in the veins
of a Delaware. You have driven their tribes from the seashore, and would
now believe what their enemies say, that you may sleep at night upon an
easy pillow. No, no; to me, every Indian who speaks a foreign tongue
is an Iroquois, whether the castle* of his tribe be in Canada, or be in
York."

* The principal villages of the Indians are still called
"castles" by the whites of New York. "Oneida castle" is no
more than a scattered hamlet; but the name is in general
use.

Heyward, perceiving that the stubborn adherence of the scout to the
cause of his friends the Delawares, or Mohicans, for they were branches
of the same numerous people, was likely to prolong a useless discussion,
changed the subj