us spoke no English. They came in a large canoe, when
my fathers had buried the tomahawk with the red men around them. Then,
Hawkeye," he continued, betraying his deep emotion, only by permitting
his voice to fall to those low, guttural tones, which render his
language, as spoken at times, so very musical; "then, Hawkeye, we were
one people, and we were happy. The salt lake gave us its fish, the wood
its deer, and the air its birds. We took wives who bore us children; we
worshipped the Great Spirit; and we kept the Maquas beyond the sound of
our songs of triumph."

"Know you anything of your own family at that time?" demanded the white.
"But you are just a man, for an Indian; and as I suppose you hold their
gifts, your fathers must have been brave warriors, and wise men at the
council-fire."

"My tribe is the grandfather of nations, but I am an unmixed man. The
blood of chiefs is in my veins, where it must stay forever. The Dutch
landed, and gave my people the fire-water; they drank until the heavens
and the earth seemed to meet, and they foolishly thought they had found
the Great Spirit. Then they parted with their land. Foot by foot,
they were driven back from the shores, until I, that am a chief and a
Sagamore, have never seen the sun shine but through the trees, and have
never visited the graves of my fathers."

"Graves bring solemn feelings over the mind," returned the scout, a good
deal touched at the calm suffering of his companion; "and they often aid
a man in his good intentions; though, for myself, I expect to leave my
own bones unburied, to bleach in the woods, or to be torn asunder by the
wolves. But where are to be found those of your race who came to their
kin in the Delaware country, so many summers since?"

"Where are the blossoms of those summers!--fallen, one by one; so all
of my family departed, each in his turn, to the land of spirits. I am on
the hilltop and must go down into the valley; and when Uncas follows in
my footsteps there will no longer be any of the blood of the Sagamores,
for my boy is the last of the Mohicans."

"Uncas is here," said another voice, in the same soft, guttural tones,
near his elbow; "who speaks to Uncas?"

The white man loosened his knife in his leathern sheath, and made
an involuntary movement of the hand toward his rifle, at this sudden
interruption; but the Indian sat composed, and without turning his head
at the unexpected sounds.

At the next instant, a youth