The Oswego, just at that place, was a deep dark stream of no great width, its still, gloomy-looking current winding its way among overhanging trees, which, in particular spots, almost shut out the light of the heavens.  Here and there some half-fallen giant of the forest lay nearly across its surface, rendering care necessary to avoid the limbs; and most of the distance, the lower branches and leaves of the trees of smaller growth were laved by its waters.  The picture so beautifully described by our own admirable poet, and which we have placed at the head of this chapter, was here realized; the earth fattened by the decayed vegetation of centuries, and black with loam, the stream that filled the banks nearly to overflowing, and the “fresh and boundless wood,” being all as visible to the eye as the pen of Bryant has elsewhere vividly presented them to the imagination.  In short, the entire scene was one of a rich and benevolent nature, before it had been subjected to the uses and desires of man; luxuriant, wild, full of promise, and not without the charm of the picturesque, even in its rudest state.  It will be remembered that this was in the year 175-, or long before even speculation had brought any portion of western New York within the bounds of civilization.  At that distant day there were two great channels of military communication between the inhabited portion of the colony of New York and the frontiers which lay adjacent to the Canadas, —­ that by Lakes Champlain and George, and that by means of the Mohawk, Wood Creek, the Oneida, and the rivers we have been describing.  Along both these lines of communication military posts had been established, though there existed a blank space of a hundred miles between the last fort at the head of the Mohawk and the outlet of the Oswego, which embraced most of the distance that Cap and Mabel had journeyed under the protection of Arrowhead.

“I sometimes wish for peace again,” said the Pathfinder, “when one can range the forest without searching for any other enemy than the beasts and fishes.  Ah’s me! many is the day that the Sarpent, there, and I have passed happily among the streams, living on venison, salmon, and trout without thought of a Mingo or a scalp!  I sometimes wish that them blessed days might come back, for it is not my real gift to slay my own kind.  I’m sartain the Sergeant’s daughter don’t think me a wretch that takes pleasure in preying on human natur’?”

As this remark, a sort of half interrogatory, was made, Pathfinder looked behind him; and, though the most partial friend could scarcely term his sunburnt and hard features handsome, even Mabel thought his smile attractive, by its simple ingenuousness and the uprightness that beamed in every lineament of his honest countenance.

“I do not think my father would have sent one like those you mention to see his daughter through the wilderness,” the young woman answered, returning the smile as frankly as it was given, but much more sweetly.