arrior
grown defies you and all your silly antiks. Throw, or the Huron gals
will laugh in your face."

Although not intended to produce such an effect, the last words aroused
the "Bounding" warrior to fury. The same nervous excitability which
rendered him so active in his person, made it difficult to repress his
feelings, and the words were scarcely past the lips of the speaker
than the tomahawk left the hand of the Indian. Nor was it cast without
ill-will, and a fierce determination to slay. Had the intention been
less deadly, the danger might have been greater. The aim was uncertain,
and the weapon glanced near the cheek of the captive, slightly cutting
the shoulder in its evolutions. This was the first instance in which
any other object than that of terrifying the prisoner, and of displaying
skill had been manifested, and the Bounding Boy was immediately led from
the arena, and was warmly rebuked for his intemperate haste, which had
come so near defeating all the hopes of the band. To this irritable
person succeeded several other young warriors, who not only hurled the
tomahawk, but who cast the knife, a far more dangerous experiment, with
reckless indifference; yet they always manifested a skill that prevented
any injury to the captive. Several times Deerslayer was grazed, but in
no instance did he receive what might be termed a wound. The unflinching
firmness with which he faced his assailants, more especially in the sort
of rally with which this trial terminated, excited a profound respect in
the spectators, and when the chiefs announced that the prisoner had
well withstood the trials of the knife and the tomahawk, there was not a
single individual in the band who really felt any hostility towards
him, with the exception of Sumach and the Bounding Boy. These two
discontented spirits got together, it is true, feeding each other's
ire, but as yet their malignant feelings were confined very much to
themselves, though there existed the danger that the others, ere long,
could not fail to be excited by their own efforts into that demoniacal
state which usually accompanied all similar scenes among the red men.

Rivenoak now told his people that the pale-face had proved himself to be
a man. He might live with the Delawares, but he had not been made woman
with that tribe. He wished to know whether it was the desire of the
Hurons to proceed any further. Even the gentlest of the females,
however, had received too much satis