'twill never do to hover about it too close, and too
long. When you have to deal with an Injin, you must calculate and manage, for a
red natur' dearly likes sarcumvention. Now, you see, Judith, that I do not steer
towards the rock at all, but here to the eastward of it, whereby the savages
will be tramping off in that direction, and get their legs awearied, and all for
no advantage!«
    »You think, then, they see us, and watch our movements, Deerslayer? I was in
hopes they might have fallen back into the woods, and left us to ourselves, for
a few hours.«
    »That's altogether a woman's consait. There's no let-up in an Injin's
watchfulness when he's fairly on a war path, and eyes are on us at this minute,
'though the lake presarves us. We must draw near the rock on a calculation, and
indivour to get the miscreants on a false scent. The Mingos have good noses,
they tell me, but a white man's reason ought always to equalize their instinct.«
    Judith now entered into a desultory discourse with Deerslayer, in which the
girl betrayed her growing interest in the young man; an interest that his
simplicity of mind, and her decision of character, sustained as it was by the
consciousness awakened by the consideration her personal charms so universally
produced, rendered her less anxious to conceal than might otherwise have been
the case. She was scarcely forward in her manner, though there was sometimes a
freedom in her glances, that it required all the aids of her exceeding beauty to
prevent from awakening suspicions unfavorable to her discretion, if not to her
morals. With Deerslayer, however, these glances were rendered less obnoxious to
so unpleasant a construction, for she seldom looked at him, without discovering
much of the sincerity and nature that accompany the purest emotions of woman. It
was a little remarkable that, as his captivity lengthened neither of the girls
manifested any great concern for her father, but, as has been said already,
their habits gave them confidence, and they looked forward to his liberation, by
means of a ransom, with a confidence that might, in a great degree, account for
their apparent indifference. Once before Hutter had been in the hands of the
Iroquois, and a few skins had readily effected his release. This event, however,
unknown to the sisters, had occurred in a time of peace between England and
France, and when the savages were restrained, instead