“Uncas is here,” said another voice, in the same soft, guttural tones.  “Who speaks to Uncas?” At the next instant a youthful warrior passed between them with a noiseless tread, and seated himself by the side of his father, Chingachgook.  “I have been on the trail of the Maquas, who lie hid like cowards,” continued Uncas.

Further talk regarding their hated enemies, the Maquas, who acted as the spies of Montcalm, was cut short by the sound of horses’ feet.  The three men rose to their feet, their eyes watchful and attentive, and their rifles ready for any emergency.

Presently, the cavalcade from Fort Edward appeared, and Heyward, addressing Hawk-eye, asked for information as to their whereabouts, explaining that they had trusted to an Indian, who had lost his way.

“An Indian lost in the woods?” exclaimed the scout.  “I should like to look at the creature.”

Saying this, he crept stealthily into the thicket.  In a few moments he returned, his suspicions fully confirmed.  Magua had clearly led the party into a trap for purposes of his own, and Hawk-eye at once took steps to secure his capture.  While Heyward held the runner in conversation, the scout and the two Mohicans crept silently through the undergrowth to surround him, but the slight crackle of a breaking stick aroused Magua’s suspicion, and, even as the ambush closed on him, he dodged under Heyward’s arms and vanished into the opposite thicket.

Hawk-eye was too well acquainted with Indian ways to think of pursuing, and, restraining the eagerness of Heyward, who would have followed Magua, and would have been undoubtedly led to the place where the scalping-knives of Magua’s companions awaited him, the scout called a council of war.

The position was serious in the extreme, how serious was disclosed that night as they lay hid in a cave.

Suddenly, with blood-curdling yells, the Maquas surrounded them.  They were surrounded completely, and, to add to the terrors of their situation, they discovered that their ammunition was exhausted.  There seemed nothing to be done but die fighting.  It was Cora who suggested an alternative:  that Hawk-eye and the two Mohicans should make for Fort William Henry and procure from their father, Munro, enough men to take them back in safety.  It was the one desperate chance, and the Mohicans took it.  Dropping silently down the river, they disappeared.  Duncan, David, and the two girls were left alone; but not for long.  As the night drew out, a body of the Maquas, swimming across the river, entered the cave, and made the whole party prisoners.

It was Magua who directed all these operations, and it was Magua who announced their fate to his prisoners.  Alice should go back to her father, but Cora was to become his squaw in an Indian wigwam.

“Monster!” cried Cora, when this proposal was laid before her.  “None but a fiend could meditate such a vengeance!”