t you and
Hist have fallen into the power of the inimy in striving to do something
for my good."

"The Delawares are prudent. The Deerslayer will not find them running
into a strange camp with their eyes shut."

Here the dialogue terminated. Hetty announced that the breakfast was
ready, and the whole party was soon seated around the simple board, in
the usual primitive manner of borderers. Judith was the last to take her
seat, pale, silent, and betraying in her countenance that she had passed
a painful, if not a sleepless, night. At this meal scarce a syllable was
exchanged, all the females manifesting want of appetites, though the
two men were unchanged in this particular. It was early when the
party arose, and there still remained several hours before it would be
necessary for the prisoner to leave his friends. The knowledge of this
circumstance, and the interest all felt in his welfare, induced the
whole to assemble on the platform again, in the desire to be near the
expected victim, to listen to his discourse, and if possible to show
their interest in him by anticipating his wishes. Deerslayer, himself,
so far as human eyes could penetrate, was wholly unmoved, conversing
cheerfully and naturally, though he avoided any direct allusions to the
expected and great event of the day. If any evidence could be discovered
of his thought's reverting to that painful subject at all, it was in the
manner in which he spoke of death and the last great change.

"Grieve not, Hetty," he said, for it was while consoling this
simple-minded girl for the loss of her parents that he thus betrayed his
feelings, "since God has app'inted that all must die. Your parents, or
them you fancied your parents, which is the same thing, have gone afore
you; this is only in the order of natur', my good gal, for the aged
go first, and the young follow. But one that had a mother like your'n,
Hetty, can be at no loss to hope the best, as to how matters will turn
out in another world. The Delaware, here, and Hist, believe in happy
hunting grounds, and have idees befitting their notions and gifts as
red-skins, but we who are of white blood hold altogether to a different
doctrine. Still, I rather conclude our heaven is their land of spirits,
and that the path which leads to it will be travelled by all colours
alike. Tis onpossible for the wicked to enter on it, I will allow, but
fri'nds can scarce be separated, though they are not of the same race
on 'ar