d next demanded.

"We heard it," was the significant answer. "An Indian yell is plain
language to men who have passed their days in the woods. But when you
landed, we were driven to crawl, like sarpents, beneath the leaves; and
then we lost sight of you entirely, until we placed eyes on you again,
trussed to the trees, and ready bound for an Indian massacre."

"Our rescue was the deed of Providence. It was nearly a miracle that you
did not mistake the path, for the Hurons divided, and each band had its
horses."

"Ay! there we were thrown off the scent, and might, indeed, have lost
the trail, had it not been for Uncas; we took the path, however, that
led into the wilderness; for we judged, and judged rightly, that the
savages would hold that course with their prisoners. But when we had
followed it for many miles, without finding a single twig broken, as I
had advised, my mind misgave me; especially as all the footsteps had the
prints of moccasins."

"Our captors had the precaution to see us shod like themselves," said
Duncan, raising a foot, and exhibiting the buckskin he wore.

"Ay, 'twas judgmatical, and like themselves; though we were too expart
to be thrown from a trail by so common an invention."

"To what, then, are we indebted for our safety?"

"To what, as a white man who has no taint of Indian blood, I should be
ashamed to own; to the judgment of the young Mohican, in matters which I
should know better than he, but which I can now hardly believe to be
true, though my own eyes tell me it is so."

"'Tis extraordinary! will you not name the reason?"

"Uncas was bold enough to say, that the beasts ridden by the gentle
ones," continued Hawkeye, glancing his eyes, not without curious
interest, on the fillies of the ladies, "planted the legs of one side on
the ground at the same time, which is contrary to the movements of all
trotting four-footed animals of my knowledge, except the bear. And yet
here are horses that always journey in this manner, as my own eyes have
seen, and as their trail has shown for twenty long miles."

"'Tis the merit of the animal! They come from the shores of
Narragansett Bay, in the small province of Providence Plantations, and
are celebrated for their hardihood, and the ease of this peculiar
movement; though other horses are not unfrequently trained to the same."

"It may be--it may be," said Hawkeye, who had listened with singular
attention to this explanation; "though I am a man