, that the young man actually thought her, as
she drew nearer, the loveliest creature of her sex his eyes had ever
dwelt on.

"Welcome--welcome, Deerslayer!" exclaimed the girl, as the canoes
floated at each other's side; "we have had a melancholy--a frightful
day--but your return is, at least, one misfortune the less! Have the
Hurons become more human, and let you go; or have you escaped from the
wretches, by your own courage and skill?"

"Neither, Judith--neither one nor t'other. The Mingos are Mingos still,
and will live and die Mingos; it is not likely their natur's will ever
undergo much improvement. Well! They've their gifts, and we've our'n,
Judith, and it doesn't much become either to speak ill of what the Lord
has created; though, if the truth must be said, I find it a sore trial
to think kindly or to talk kindly of them vagabonds. As for outwitting
them, that might have been done, and it was done, too, atween the
Sarpent, yonder, and me, when we were on the trail of Hist--" here the
hunter stopped to laugh in his own silent fashion--"but it's no easy
matter to sarcumvent the sarcumvented. Even the fa'ans get to know the
tricks of the hunters afore a single season is over, and an Indian whose
eyes have once been opened by a sarcumvention never shuts them ag'in
in precisely the same spot. I've known whites to do that, but never a
red-skin. What they l'arn comes by practice, and not by books, and
of all schoolmasters exper'ence gives lessons that are the longest
remembered."

"All this is true, Deerslayer, but if you have not escaped from the
savages, how came you here?"

"That's a nat'ral question, and charmingly put. You are wonderful
handsome this evening, Judith, or Wild Rose, as the Sarpent calls you,
and I may as well say it, since I honestly think it! You may well call
them Mingos, savages too, for savage enough do they feel, and savage
enough will they act, if you once give them an opportunity. They feel
their loss here, in the late skrimmage, to their hearts' cores, and are
ready to revenge it on any creatur' of English blood that may fall in
their way. Nor, for that matter do I much think they would stand at
taking their satisfaction out of a Dutch man."

"They have killed father; that ought to satisfy their wicked cravings
for blood," observed Hetty reproachfully.

"I know it, gal--I know the whole story--partly from what I've seen
from the shore, since they brought me up from the point, and par