no further danger of coming
ashore. The savage started at this ready and decided expedient, and his
companion saw that he cast a hurried and fierce glance at his own canoe,
or that which contained the paddles. The change of manner, however, was
but momentary, and then the Iroquois resumed his air of friendliness,
and a smile of satisfaction.

"Good!" he repeated, with stronger emphasis than ever. "Young head, old
mind. Know how to settle quarrel. Farewell, brother. He go to house in
water-muskrat house--Injin go to camp; tell chiefs no find canoe."

Deerslayer was not sorry to hear this proposal, for he felt anxious
to join the females, and he took the offered hand of the Indian very
willingly. The parting words were friendly, and while the red man
walked calmly towards the wood, with the rifle in the hollow of his arm,
without once looking back in uneasiness or distrust, the white man moved
towards the remaining canoe, carrying his piece in the same pacific
manner, it is true, but keeping his eye fastened on the movements of the
other. This distrust, however, seemed to be altogether uncalled for, and
as if ashamed to have entertained it, the young man averted his look,
and stepped carelessly up to his boat. Here he began to push the canoe
from the shore, and to make his other preparations for departing. He
might have been thus employed a minute, when, happening to turn his face
towards the land, his quick and certain eye told him, at a glance, the
imminent jeopardy in which his life was placed. The black, ferocious
eyes of the savage were glancing on him, like those of the crouching
tiger, through a small opening in the bushes, and the muzzle of his
rifle seemed already to be opening in a line with his own body.

Then, indeed, the long practice of Deerslayer, as a hunter did him good
service. Accustomed to fire with the deer on the bound, and often when
the precise position of the animal's body had in a manner to be guessed
at, he used the same expedients here. To cock and poise his rifle were
the acts of a single moment and a single motion: then aiming almost
without sighting, he fired into the bushes where he knew a body ought
to be, in order to sustain the appalling countenance which alone was
visible. There was not time to raise the piece any higher, or to take
a more deliberate aim. So rapid were his movements that both parties
discharged their pieces at the same instant, the concussions mingling
in one report.