to be, and youth is ambitious and striving; but, God
be praised! I mastered that feeling, and, friend Cap, what is almost as good, I
mastered my rival in as fair a shooting match as was ever witnessed in a
garrison; he with his piece, and I with Killdeer, and before the General, in
person, too!« Here Pathfinder stopped to laugh, his triumph still glittering in
his eyes, and glowing on his sunburnt and browned cheek. - »Well, the next
conflict with the devil, was the hardest of them all, and that was when I came
suddenly, upon a camp of six Mingos, asleep in the woods, with their guns and
horns piled in a way that enabled me to get possession of them without waking a
miscreant of them all. What an opportunity that would have been for the Sarpent,
who would have despatched them one after another with his knife, and had their
six scalps at his girdle, in about the time it takes me to tell you the story.
Oh! He's a valiant warrior, that Chingachgook, and as honest as he's brave, and
as good as he's honest.«
    »And what may you have done in this matter, Master Pathfinder,« demanded
Cap, who began to be interested in the result - »It seems to me, you had made
either a very lucky, or a very unlucky landfall.«
    »'Twas lucky, and 'twas unlucky, if you can understand that. 'Twas unlucky,
for it proved a desperate trial, and yet 'twas lucky, all things considered, in
the ind. I did not touch a hair of their heads, for a white man has no nat'ral
gifts to take scalps, nor did I even make sure of one of their rifles. I
distrusted myself, knowing that a Mingo is no favorite, in my own eyes.«
    »As for the scalps, I think you were right enough, my worthy friend, but as
for the armament and the stores, they would have been condemned by any
prize-court in Christendom!«
    »That they would - that they would, but then the Mingos would have gone
clear, seeing that a white man can no more attack an unarmed, than a sleeping,
inimy. No - no - I did myself, and my colour, and my religion, too, greater
justice. I waited 'till their nap was over, and they well on their warpath
ag'in, and by ambushing them here, and flanking