h spiced wines are not
better liked than a redskin relishes this water; especially when his
natur' is ailing. But Uncas has made his fire, and it is time we think
of eating, for our journey is long, and all before us."

Interrupting the dialogue by this abrupt transition, the scout had
instant recourse to the fragments of food which had escaped the voracity
of the Hurons. A very summary process completed the simple cookery, when
he and the Mohicans commenced their humble meal, with the silence and
characteristic diligence of men who ate in order to enable themselves
to endure great and unremitting toil.

When this necessary, and, happily, grateful duty had been performed,
each of the foresters stooped and took a long and parting draught at
that solitary and silent spring,[18] around which and its sister
fountains, within fifty years, the wealth, beauty, and talents of a
hemisphere were to assemble in throngs, in pursuit of health and
pleasure. Then Hawkeye announced his determination to proceed. The
sisters resumed their saddles; Duncan and David grasped their rifles,
and followed on their footsteps; the scout leading the advance, and the
Mohicans bringing up the rear. The whole party moved swiftly through the
narrow path, towards the north, leaving the healing waters to mingle
unheeded with the adjacent brook, and the bodies of the dead to fester
on the neighboring mount, without the rites of sepulture; a fate but too
common to the warriors of the woods to excite either commiseration or
comment.

CHAPTER XIII

"I'll seek a readier path."

PARNELL.

The route taken by Hawkeye lay across those sandy plains, relieved by
occasional valleys and swells of land, which had been traversed by their
party on the morning of the same day, with the baffled Magua for their
guide. The sun had now fallen low towards the distant mountains; and as
their journey lay through the interminable forest, the heat was no
longer oppressive. Their progress, in consequence, was proportionate;
and long before the twilight gathered about them, they had made good
many toilsome miles on their return.

The hunter, like the savage whose place he filled, seemed to select
among the blind signs of their wild route, with a species of instinct,
seldom abating his speed, and never pausing to deliberate. A rapid and
oblique glance at the moss on the trees, with an occasional upward gaze
towards the setting sun, or a steady but passing look