e wrote, thinking it would relieve him. A
page of notes was rapidly dictated, which seemed to his alarmed nurse
but the wild fancies of a fevered brain. It proved to be a clear account
of a lively struggle between "Magua" and "Chingachgook," and made the
twelfth chapter of the book. Why the author called Lake George by
another name is thus explained: "Looking over an ancient map, he found
that a tribe of Indians the French called _Les Honcans_ lived by this
beautiful sheet of water, and thinking the English name too commonplace
and the Indian name too hard to pronounce, he chose the 'Horican' as
better suiting simple Natty." This book, "The Last of the Mohicans,"
proved, perhaps, to be the most popular of all his works up to 1826.

[Illustration: GLENS FALL.]

[Illustration: LAKE GEORGE, OR "THE HORICAN."]

A present-day man-of-letters writes of Cooper: "He paints Indians and
Indian scenes with a glow of our sunset skies and the crimson of our
autumn maples, and makes them alive with brilliant color. Rifles crack,
tomahawks gleam, and arrows dart like sunbeams through the air. Indians
fleet of foot and full of graceful movement are these dusky Apollo's
Uncas. Cooper's readers never yawn over these tales of the forest or the
sea. He is the swan on the lake, the eagle in the air, the deer in the
wood, and the wind on the sea." So writes Prof. Brander Matthews. That
life-student of the American Indian, Francis Parkman, wrote: "It is easy
to find fault with 'The Last of the Mohicans,' but it is far from easy
to rival or even approach its excellence." It is said that "Magua," of
this book, "is the best-drawn Indian in fiction; from scalp-lock to
moccasin tingling with life" and the tension of the canoe-chase on the
Horican.

During this Lake George excursion a question came up between the Hon.
Mr. Stanley, the Hon. Wortley Montagu, and Mr. Cooper as to who was the
"Premier Baron of England." Cooper named Lord Henry William Fitzgerald
(3rd son of James, 1st Duke of Leinster) 22nd Baron de Ros [b. 1761--d.
1829] as his man; whose title came from Henry I., to Peter, Lord of
Holderness called Ros. Each of his two friends claimed another as the
"Premier Baron of England." All were so confident that a wager was
laid, and later inquiry proved Cooper right. In due time the debt
was paid with a large gold, silver-filled seal. On its stone--a
chrysoprase--appeared a baron's coronet and the old Scottish proverb:
"He that will to Cu