-eye, passed from before the eyes of the Delawares, and were
soon buried in the vast forests of that region.
    But the tie which, through their common calamity, had united the feelings of
these simple dwellers in the woods with the strangers who had thus transiently
visited them, was not so easily broken. Years passed away before the
traditionary tale of the white maiden, and of the young warrior of the Mohicans,
ceased to beguile the long nights and tedious marches, or to animate their
youthful and brave with a desire for vengeance. Neither were the secondary
actors in these momentous incidents forgotten. Through the medium of the scout,
who served for years afterwards, as a link between them and civilized life, they
learned, in answer to their inquiries, that the »gray-head« was speedily
gathered to his fathers - borne down, as was erroneously believed, by his
military misfortunes; and that the »open hand« had conveyed his surviving
daughter far into the settlements of the »pale-faces,« where her tears had, at
last, ceased to flow, and had been succeeded by the bright smiles which were
better suited to her joyous nature.
    But these were events of a time later than that which concerns our tale.
Deserted by all of his colour, Hawk-eye returned to the spot where his own
sympathies led him, with a force that no ideal bond of union could bestow. He
was just in time to catch a parting look of the features of Uncas, whom the
Delawares were already enclosing in his last vestments of skins. They paused to
permit the longing and lingering gaze of the sturdy woodsman, and when it was
ended, the body was enveloped, never to be unclosed again. Then came a
procession like the other, and the whole nation was collected about the
temporary grave of the chief - temporary, because it was proper, that at some
future day, his bones should rest among those of his own people.
    The movement, like the feeling, had been simultaneous and general. The same
grave expression of grief, the same rigid silence, and the same deference to the
principal mourner, were observed, around the place of interment, as have been
already described. The body was deposited, in an attitude of repose, facing the
rising sun, with the implements of war and of the chase at hand, in readiness
for the final journey. An opening was left in the shell, by which it was
protected from the soil, for the spirit to communicate with its earthly
tenement, when necessary; and the whole was concealed
