reatening attitude at the other's side. The savage tormentors recoiled
before these warlike intruders, and uttered as they appeared in such
quick succession, the often repeated and peculiar exclamation of
surprise, followed by the well known and dreaded appellations of--

"Le Cerf Agile! Le Gros Serpent!"

But the wary and vigilant leader of the Hurons was not so easily
disconcerted. Casting his keen eyes around the little plain, he
comprehended the nature of the assault at a glance, and encouraging his
followers by his voice as well as by his example, he unsheathed his long
and dangerous knife, and rushed with a loud whoop upon the expecting
Chingachgook. It was the signal for a general combat. Neither party had
fire-arms, and the contest was to be decided in the deadliest manner;
hand to hand, with weapons of offence, and none of defence.

Uncas answered the whoop, and leaping on an enemy, with a single, well
directed blow of his tomahawk, cleft him to the brain. Heyward tore the
weapon of Magua from the sapling, and rushed eagerly towards the fray.
As the combatants were now equal in number, each singled an opponent
from the adverse band. The rush and blows passed with the fury of a
whirlwind, and the swiftness of lightning. Hawkeye soon got another
enemy within reach of his arm, and with one sweep of his formidable
weapon he beat down the slight and inartificial defences of his
antagonist, crushing him to the earth with the blow. Heyward ventured to
hurl the tomahawk he had seized, too ardent to await the moment of
closing. It struck the Indian he had selected on the forehead, and
checked for an instant his onward rush. Encouraged by this slight
advantage, the impetuous young man continued his onset, and sprang upon
his enemy with naked hands. A single instant was enough to assure him of
the rashness of the measure, for he immediately found himself fully
engaged, with all his activity and courage, in endeavoring to ward the
desperate thrusts made with the knife of the Huron. Unable longer to
foil an enemy so alert and vigilant, he threw his arms about him, and
succeeded in pinning the limbs of the other to his side, with an iron
grasp, but one that was far too exhausting to himself to continue long.
In this extremity he heard a voice near him, shouting--

"Extarminate the varlets! no quarter to an accursed Mingo!"

At the next moment, the breech of Hawkeye's rifle fell on the naked head
of his adversary, whose m