“On the sea, if you wish it, friend —­ have opportunities which do not befall us of the wilderness.  Still, we know our own callings, and they are what I consider natural callings, and are not parvarted by vanity and wantonness.  Now, my gifts are with the rifle, and on a trail, and in the way of game and scouting; for, though I can use the spear and the paddle, I pride not myself on either.  The youth Jasper, there, who is discoursing with the Sergeant’s daughter, is a different cratur’; for he may be said to breathe the water, as it might be, like a fish.  The Indians and Frenchers of the north shore call him Eau-douce, on account of his gifts in this particular.  He is better at the oar, and the rope too, than in making fires on a trail.”

“There must be something about these gifts of which you speak, after all,” said Cap.  “Now this fire, I will acknowledge, has overlaid all my seamanship.  Arrowhead, there, said the smoke came from a pale-face’s fire, and that is a piece of philosophy which I hold to be equal to steering in a dark night by the edges of the sand.”

“It’s no great secret,” returned Pathfinder, laughing with great inward glee, though habitual caution prevented the emission of any noise.  “Nothing is easier to us who pass our time in the great school of Providence than to larn its lessons.  We should be as useless on a trail, or in carrying tidings through the wilderness, as so many woodchucks, did we not soon come to a knowledge of these niceties.  Eau-douce, as we call him, is so fond of the water, that he gathered a damp stick or two for our fire; and wet will bring dark smoke, as I suppose even you followers of the sea must know.  It’s no great secret, though all is mystery to such as doesn’t study the Lord and His mighty ways with humility and thankfulness.”

“That must be a keen eye of Arrowhead’s to see so slight a difference.”

“He would be but a poor Indian if he didn’t.  No, no; it is war-time, and no red-skin is outlying without using his senses.  Every skin has its own natur’, and every natur’ has its own laws, as well as its own skin.  It was many years before I could master all these higher branches of a forest education; for red-skin knowledge doesn’t come as easy to white-skin natur’, as what I suppose is intended to be white-skin knowledge; though I have but little of the latter, having passed most of my time in the wilderness.”

“You have been a ready scholar, Master Pathfinder, as is seen by your understanding these things so well.  I suppose it would be no great matter for a man regularly brought up to the sea to catch these trifles, if he could only bring his mind fairly to bear upon them.”

“I don’t know that.  The white man has his difficulties in getting red-skin habits, quite as much as the Indian in getting white-skin ways.  As for the real natur’, it is my opinion that neither can actually get that of the other.”