ound her had been
employing the time in endeavoring to persuade the bereaved widow that
there was still a hope Deerslayer might be prevailed on to enter her
wigwam, in preference to entering the world of spirits, and this, too,
with a success that previous symptoms scarcely justified. All this was
the result of a resolution on the part of the chief to leave no proper
means unemployed, in order to get transferred to his own nation the
greatest hunter that was then thought to exist in all that region,
as well as a husband for a woman who he felt would be likely to be
troublesome, were any of her claims to the attention and care of the
tribe overlooked.

In conformity with this scheme, the Sumach had been secretly advised to
advance into the circle, and to make her appeal to the prisoner's sense
of justice, before the band had recourse to the last experiment. The
woman, nothing loth, consented, for there was some such attraction in
becoming the wife of a noted hunter, among the females of the tribes, as
is experienced by the sex, in more refined life, when they bestow their
hands on the affluent. As the duties of a mother were thought to be
paramount to all other considerations, the widow felt none of that
embarrassment, in preferring her claims, to which even a female fortune
hunter among ourselves might be liable. When she stood forth before the
whole party, therefore, the children that she led by the hands fully
justified all she did.

"You see me before you, cruel pale-face," the woman commenced; "your
spirit must tell you my errand. I have found you; I cannot find le Loup
Cervier, nor the Panther; I have looked for them in the lake, in the
woods, in the clouds. I cannot say where they have gone."

"No man knows, good Sumach, no man knows," interposed the captive. "When
the spirit leaves the body, it passes into a world beyond our knowledge,
and the wisest way, for them that are left behind, is to hope for
the best. No doubt both your warriors have gone to the Happy Hunting
Grounds, and at the proper time you will see 'em ag'in, in their
improved state. The wife and sister of braves must have looked forward
to some such tarmination of their 'arthly careers."

"Cruel pale-face, what had my warriors done that you should slay them!
They were the best hunters, and the boldest young men of their tribe;
the Great Spirit intended that they should live until they withered like
the branches of the hemlock, and fell of their