g
back in amazement; "it was here that I saw him fall, and I could have
sworn that here he yet remained."

"Hist! speak lower; for we know not what ears are open, and the Mingos
are a quick-witted breed. As for Uncas, he is out on the plain, and the
Maquas, if any such are about us, will find their equal."

"You think that Montcalm has not called off all his Indians? Let us give
the alarm to our companions, that we may stand to our arms. Here are
five of us, who are not unused to meet an enemy."

"Not a word to either, as you value life. Look at the Sagamore, how like
a grand Indian chief he sits by the fire. If there are any skulkers out
in the darkness, they will never discover by his countenance that we
suspect danger at hand."

"But they may discover him, and it will prove his death. His person can
be too plainly seen by the light of that fire, and he will become the
first and most certain victim."

"It is undeniable that now you speak the truth," returned the scout,
betraying more anxiety than was usual; "yet what can be done? A single
suspicious look might bring on an attack before we are ready to receive
it. He knows, by the call I gave to Uncas, that we have struck a scent:
I will tell him that we are on the trail of the Mingos; his Indian
nature will teach him how to act."

The scout applied his fingers to his mouth, and raised a low hissing
sound, that caused Duncan, at first, to start aside, believing that he
heard a serpent. The head of Chingachgook was resting on a hand, as he
sat musing by himself; but the moment he heard the warning of the animal
whose name he bore, it arose to an upright position and his dark eyes
glanced swiftly and keenly on every side of him. With this sudden and
perhaps involuntary movement, every appearance of surprise or alarm
ended. His rifle lay untouched, and apparently unnoticed, within reach
of his hand. The tomahawk that he had loosened in his belt for the sake
of ease, was even suffered to fall from its usual situation to the
ground, and his form seemed to sink, like that of a man whose nerves and
sinews were suffered to relax for the purpose of rest. Cunningly
resuming his former position, though with a change of hands, as if the
movement had been made merely to relieve the limb, the native awaited
the result with a calmness and fortitude that none but an Indian warrior
would have known how to exercise.

But Heyward saw that while to a less instructed eye the Mohica