n his manner, though with calmness and dignity,
"Killer of the Deer, it is time that my people knew their minds. The
sun is no longer over our heads; tired of waiting on the Hurons, he
has begun to fall near the pines on this side of the valley. He is
travelling fast towards the country of our French fathers; it is to warn
his children that their lodges are empty, and that they ought to be at
home. The roaming wolf has his den, and he goes to it when he wishes to
see his young. The Iroquois are not poorer than the wolves. They have
villages, and wigwams, and fields of corn; the Good Spirits will be
tired of watching them alone. My people must go back and see to their
own business. There will be joy in the lodges when they hear our whoop
from the forest! It will be a sorrowful whoop; when it is understood,
grief will come after it. There will be one scalp-whoop, but there
will be only one. We have the fur of the Muskrat; his body is among the
fishes. Deerslayer must say whether another scalp shall be on our pole.
Two lodges are empty; a scalp, living or dead, is wanted at each door."

"Then take 'em dead, Huron," firmly, but altogether without dramatic
boasting, returned the captive. "My hour is come, I do suppose, and what
must be, must. If you are bent on the tortur', I'll do my indivours to
bear up ag'in it, though no man can say how far his natur' will stand
pain, until he's been tried."

"The pale-face cur begins to put his tail between his legs!" cried
a young and garrulous savage, who bore the appropriate title of the
Corbeau Rouge; a sobriquet he had gained from the French by his facility
in making unseasonable noises, and an undue tendency to hear his own
voice; "he is no warrior; he has killed the Loup Cervier when looking
behind him not to see the flash of his own rifle. He grunts like a hog,
already; when the Huron women begin to torment him, he will cry like the
young of the catamount. He is a Delaware woman, dressed in the skin of a
Yengeese!"

"Have your say, young man; have your say," returned Deerslayer, unmoved;
"you know no better, and I can overlook it. Talking may aggravate
women, but can hardly make knives sharper, fire hotter, or rifles more
sartain."

Rivenoak now interposed, reproving the Red Crow for his premature
interference, and then directing the proper persons to bind the captive.
This expedient was adopted, not from any apprehensions that he would
escape, or from any necessity that was