a spot where a little basin of water reflected the stars from its
placid bosom, "here is the 'bloody pond'; and I am on ground that I have
not only often traveled, but over which I have fou't the enemy, from the
rising to the setting sun."

"Ha! that sheet of dull and dreary water, then, is the sepulcher of the
brave men who fell in the contest. I have heard it named, but never have
I stood on its banks before."

"Three battles did we make with the Dutch-Frenchman* in a day,"
continued Hawkeye, pursuing the train of his own thoughts, rather than
replying to the remark of Duncan. "He met us hard by, in our outward
march to ambush his advance, and scattered us, like driven deer, through
the defile, to the shores of Horican. Then we rallied behind our fallen
trees, and made head against him, under Sir William--who was made Sir
William for that very deed; and well did we pay him for the disgrace
of the morning! Hundreds of Frenchmen saw the sun that day for the last
time; and even their leader, Dieskau himself, fell into our hands, so
cut and torn with the lead, that he has gone back to his own country,
unfit for further acts in war."

* Baron Dieskau, a German, in the service of France. A few
years previously to the period of the tale, this officer was
defeated by Sir William Johnson, of Johnstown, New York, on
the shores of Lake George.

"'Twas a noble repulse!" exclaimed Heyward, in the heat of his youthful
ardor; "the fame of it reached us early, in our southern army."

"Ay! but it did not end there. I was sent by Major Effingham, at Sir
William's own bidding, to outflank the French, and carry the tidings
of their disaster across the portage, to the fort on the Hudson. Just
hereaway, where you see the trees rise into a mountain swell, I met a
party coming down to our aid, and I led them where the enemy were taking
their meal, little dreaming that they had not finished the bloody work
of the day."

"And you surprised them?"

"If death can be a surprise to men who are thinking only of the cravings
of their appetites. We gave them but little breathing time, for they had
borne hard upon us in the fight of the morning, and there were few in
our party who had not lost friend or relative by their hands."

"When all was over, the dead, and some say the dying, were cast into
that little pond. These eyes have seen its waters colored with blood, as
natural water never yet flowed from the bowels of the