“I make no doubt, Master Pathfinder,” he answered, when these thoughts had found time to glance through his mind, “that we shall reach port in safety.  What distance may we now be from the fort?”

“Little more than fifteen miles; and swift miles too, as the river runs, if the Mingos let us go clear.”

“And I suppose the woods will stretch along starboard and larboard, as heretofore?”

“Anan?”

“I mean that we shall have to pick our way through these damned trees.”

“Nay, nay, you will go in the canoe, and the Oswego has been cleared of its flood-wood by the troops.  It will be floating down stream, and that, too, with a swift current.”

“And what the devil is to prevent these minks of which you speak from shooting us as we double a headland, or are busy in steering clear of the rocks?”

“The Lord! —­ He who has so often helped others in greater difficulties.  Many and many is the time that my head would have been stripped of hair, skin, and all, hadn’t the Lord fi’t of my side.  I never go into a skrimmage, friend mariner, without thinking of this great ally, who can do more in battle than all the battalions of the 60th, were they brought into a single line.”

“Ay, ay, this may do well enough for a scouter; but we seamen like our offing, and to go into action with nothing in our minds but the business before us —­ plain broadside and broadside work, and no trees or rocks to thicken the water.”

“And no Lord too, I dare to say, if the truth were known.  Take my word for it, Master Cap, that no battle is the worse fi’t for having the Lord on your side.  Look at the head of the Big Sarpent, there; you can see the mark of a knife all along by his left ear:  now nothing but a bullet from this long rifle of mine saved his scalp that day; for it had fairly started, and half a minute more would have left him without the war-lock.  When the Mohican squeezes my hand, and intermates that I befriended him in that matter, I tell him no; it was the Lord who led me to the only spot where execution could be done, or his necessity be made known, on account of the smoke.  Sartain, when I got the right position, I finished the affair of my own accord.  For a friend under the tomahawk is apt to make a man think quick and act at once, as was my case, or the Sarpent’s spirit would be hunting in the happy land of his people at this very moment.”

“Come, come, Pathfinder, this palaver is worse than being skinned from stem to stem; we have but a few hours of sun, and had better be drifting down this said current of yours while we may.  Magnet dear, are you not ready to get under way?”