party above,
while the two adventurers were watching the camp, was now despatched
with some answer, and doubtless bore with him the intelligence of all
that had happened.

Down to this moment, the young Indian who had been seen walking in
company with Hist and another female had made no advances to any
communication with Deerslayer. He had held himself aloof from his
friends, even, passing near the bevy of younger women, who were
clustering together, apart as usual, and conversed in low tones on the
subject of the escape of their late companion. Perhaps it would be true
to say that these last were pleased as well as vexed at what had just
occurred. Their female sympathies were with the lovers, while their
pride was bound up in the success of their own tribe. It is possible,
too, that the superior personal advantages of Hist rendered her
dangerous to some of the younger part of the group, and they were not
sorry to find she was no longer in the way of their own ascendency. On
the whole, however, the better feeling was most prevalent, for neither
the wild condition in which they lived, the clannish prejudices of
tribes, nor their hard fortunes as Indian women, could entirely conquer
the inextinguishable leaning of their sex to the affections. One of the
girls even laughed at the disconsolate look of the swain who might fancy
himself deserted, a circumstance that seemed suddenly to arouse his
energies, and induce him to move towards the log, on which the prisoner
was still seated, drying his clothes.

"This is Catamount!" said the Indian, striking his hand boastfully on
his naked breast, as he uttered the words in a manner to show how much
weight he expected them to carry.

"This is Hawkeye," quietly returned Deerslayer, adopting the name by
which he knew he would be known in future, among all the tribes of the
Iroquois. "My sight is keen; is my brother's leap long?"

"From here to the Delaware villages. Hawkeye has stolen my wife; he must
bring her back, or his scalp will hang on a pole, and dry in my wigwam."

"Hawkeye has stolen nothing, Huron. He doesn't come of a thieving breed,
nor has he thieving gifts. Your wife, as you call Wah-ta-Wah, will never
be the wife of any red-skin of the Canadas; her mind is in the cabin of
a Delaware, and her body has gone to find it. The catamount is actyve I
know, but its legs can't keep pace with a woman's wishes."

"The Serpent of the Delawares is a dog--he is a poor bull trou