es can't be followed;
and that inds the matter. So just canoe yourself off into the middle
of the lake, and by the time you get back there'll be movements in that
camp!"

The young man set about complying with great reluctance and a heavy
heart. He knew the prejudices of the frontiermen too well, however, to
attempt a remonstrance. The latter, indeed, under the circumstances,
might prove dangerous, as it would certainly prove useless. He paddled
the canoe, therefore, silently and with the former caution, to a spot
near the centre of the placid sheet of water, and set the boat just
recovered adrift, to float towards the castle, before the light
southerly air. This expedient had been adopted, in both cases, under
the certainty that the drift could not carry the light barks more than
a league or two, before the return of light, when they might easily be
overtaken in order to prevent any wandering savage from using them, by
swimming off and getting possession, a possible but scarcely a probable
event, all the paddles were retained.

No sooner had he set the recovered canoe adrift, than Deerslayer
turned the bows of his own towards the point on the shore that had been
indicated by Hurry. So light was the movement of the little craft,
and so steady the sweep of its master's arm, that ten minutes had not
elapsed ere it was again approaching the land, having, in that brief
time, passed over fully half a mile of distance. As soon as Deerslayer's
eye caught a glimpse of the rushes, of which there were many growing in
the water a hundred feet from the shore, he arrested the motion of
the canoe, and anchored his boat by holding fast to the delicate
but tenacious stem of one of the drooping plants. Here he remained,
awaiting, with an intensity of suspense that can be easily imagined, the
result of the hazardous enterprise.

It would be difficult to convey to the minds of those who have never
witnessed it, the sublimity that characterizes the silence of a solitude
as deep as that which now reigned over the Glimmerglass. In the present
instance, this sublimity was increased by the gloom of night, which
threw its shadowy and fantastic forms around the lake, the forest,
and the hills. It is not easy, indeed, to conceive of any place more
favorable to heighten these natural impressions, than that Deerslayer
now occupied. The size of the lake brought all within the reach of human
senses, while it displayed so much of the imposing scene