So excited had the young man become by all the incidents of the stirring scene, that the bullet sped from his rifle as he spoke, but uselessly, as it would seem, for both the fugitives tossed their arms in disdain.  The Pathfinder did not fire.

“No, no, Eau-douce,” he answered; “I do not seek blood without a cause; and my bullet is well leathered and carefully driven down, for the time of need.  I love no Mingo, as is just, seeing how much I have consorted with the Delawares, who are their mortal and natural enemies; but I never pull trigger on one of the miscreants unless it be plain that his death will lead to some good end.  The deer never leaped that fell by my hand wantonly.  By living much alone with God in the wilderness a man gets to feel the justice of such opinions.  One life is sufficient for our present wants; and there may yet be occasion to use Killdeer in behalf of the Sarpent, who has done an untimorsome thing to let them rampant devils so plainly know that he is in their neighborhood.  As I’m a wicked sinner, there is one of them prowling along the bank this very moment, like one of the boys of the garrison skulking behind a fallen tree to get a shot at a squirrel!”

As the Pathfinder pointed with his finger while speaking, the quick eye of Jasper soon caught the object towards which it was directed.  One of the young warriors of the enemy, burning with a desire to distinguish himself, had stolen from his party towards the cover in which Chingachgook had concealed himself; and as the latter was deceived by the apparent apathy of his foes, as well as engaged in some further preparations of his own, he had evidently obtained a position where he got a sight of the Delaware.  This circumstance was apparent by the arrangements the Iroquois was making to fire, for Chingachgook himself was not visible from the western side of the river.  The rift was at a bend in the Oswego, and the sweep of the eastern shore formed a curve so wide that Chingachgook was quite near to his enemies in a straight direction, though separated by several hundred feet on the land, owing to which fact air lines brought both parties nearly equidistant from the Pathfinder and Jasper.  The general width of the river being a little less than two hundred yards, such necessarily was about the distance between his two observers and the skulking Iroquois.

“The Sarpent must be thereabouts,” observed Pathfinder, who never turned his eye for an instant from the young warrior; “and yet he must be strangely off his guard to allow a Mingo devil to get his stand so near, with manifest signs of bloodshed in his heart.”

“See!” interrupted Jasper —­ “there is the body of the Indian the Delaware shot!  It has drifted on a rock, and the current has forced the head and face above the water.”

“Quite likely, boy, quite likely.  Human natur’ is little better than a log of driftwood, when the life that was breathed into its nostrils is departed.  That Iroquois will never harm any one more; but yonder skulking savage is bent on taking the scalp of my best and most tried friend.”