drop the gourd without breaking it!"
returned Hawkeye, perfectly undisturbed by the other's manner, "Fools,
if you would find the bullet of a sharpshooter of these woods, you must
look in the object and not around it!"

The Indian youths instantly comprehended his meaning--for this time he
spoke in the Delaware tongue--and tearing the gourd from the tree, they
held it on high with an exulting shout, displaying a hole in its bottom,
which had been cut by the bullet, after passing through the usual
orifice in the centre of its upper side. At this unexpected exhibition,
a loud and vehement expression of pleasure burst from the mouth of every
warrior present. It decided the question, and effectually established
Hawkeye in the possession of his dangerous reputation. Those curious and
admiring eyes which had been turned again on Heyward, were finally
directed to the weather-beaten form of the scout, who immediately became
the principal object of attention to the simple and unsophisticated
beings by whom he was surrounded. When the sudden and noisy commotion
had a little subsided, the aged chief resumed his examination.

"Why did you wish to stop my ears?" he said, addressing Duncan; "are
the Delawares fools, that they could not know the young panther from the
cat?"

"They will yet find the Huron a singing-bird," said Duncan, endeavoring
to adopt the figurative language of the natives.

"It is good. We will know who can shut the ears of men. Brother," added
the chief, turning his eyes on Magua, "the Delawares listen."

Thus singled, and directly called on to declare his object, the Huron
arose; and advancing with great deliberation and dignity into the very
centre of the circle, where he stood confronted to the prisoners, he
placed himself in an attitude to speak. Before opening his mouth,
however, he bent his eyes slowly along the whole living boundary of
earnest faces as if to temper his expressions to the capacities of his
audience. On Hawkeye he cast a glance of respectful enmity; on Duncan, a
look of inextinguishable hatred; the shrinking figure of Alice he
scarcely deigned to notice; but when his glance met the firm,
commanding, and yet lovely form of Cora, his eye lingered a moment, with
an expression that it might have been difficult to define. Then, filled
with his own dark intentions, he spoke in the language of the Canadas, a
tongue that he well knew was comprehended by most of his auditors.

"The Spirit that