. »When you send your parties abroad in war, you find it
prudent, at least, to arrange the marks and places of encampment, in order that
they who fight on your side, may know when and where to expect a friend?«
    »Listen,« interrupted Duncan; »you have heard from this faithful follower of
the captives, that the Indians are of two tribes, if not of different nations.
With one, whom you think to be a branch of the Delawares, is she you call the
dark-hair; the other, and younger of the ladies, is undeniably with our declared
enemies, the Hurons. It becomes my youth and rank to attempt the latter
adventure. While you, therefore, are negotiating with your friends for the
release of one of the sisters, I will effect that of the other, or die.«
    The awakened spirit of the young soldier gleamed in his eyes, and his form
became imposing under its influence. Hawk-eye, though too much accustomed to
Indian artifices not to foresee the danger of the experiment, knew not well how
to combat this sudden resolution. Perhaps there was something in the proposal
that suited his own hardy nature, and that secret love of desperate adventure,
which had increased with his experience, until hazard and danger had become, in
some measure, necessary to the enjoyment of his existence. Instead of continuing
to oppose the scheme of Duncan, his humour suddenly altered, and he lent himself
to its execution.
    »Come,« he said, with a good humoured smile; »the buck that will take to the
water must be headed, and not followed! Chingachgook has as many different
paints, as the engineer officer's wife, who takes down natur on scraps of paper,
making the mountains look like cocks of rusty hay, and placing the blue sky in
reach of your hand - the Sagamore can use them too! Seat yourself on the log,
and my life on it, he can soon make a natural fool of you, and that, well, to
your liking.«
    Duncan complied, and the Mohican, who had been an attentive listener to the
discourse, readily undertook the office. Long practised in all the subtle arts
of his race, he drew, with great dexterity and quickness, the fantastic shadow
that the natives were accustomed to consider as the evidence of a friendly and
jocular disposition. Every line that could possibly be interpreted into a secret
inclination for war, was carefully avoided; while, on the other hand, he studied
those conceits that might be construed into amity
