The Pathfinder, James Fenimore Cooper [top reads .TXT] 📗

party; while the Dew-of-June, as the wife of Arrowhead was called, passively went her way towards the canoe, too much accustomed to obedience, solitude, and the gloom of the forest to feel apprehension.

The three who remained in the wind-row now picked their way around its tangled maze, and gained the margin of the woods. A few glances of the eye sufficed for Arrowhead; but old Cap deliberately set the smoke by a pocket-compass, before he trusted himself within the shadows of the trees.

“This steering by the nose, Magnet, may do well enough for an Indian, but your thoroughbred knows the virtue of the needle,” said the uncle, as he trudged at the heels of the light-stepping Tuscarora. “America would never have been discovered, take my word for it, if Columbus had been nothing but nostrils. Friend Arrowhead, didst ever see a machine like this?”

The Indian turned, cast a glance at the compass, which Cap held in a way to direct his course, and gravely answered, “A pale-face eye. The Tuscarora see in his head. The Saltwater (for so the Indian styled his companion) all eye now; no tongue.”

“He means, uncle, that we had needs be silent, perhaps he distrusts the persons we are about to meet.”

“Ay, ‘tis an Indian’s fashion of going to quarters. You perceive he has examined the priming of his rifle, and it may be as well if I look to that of my own pistols.”

Without betraying alarm at these preparations, to which she had become accustomed by her long journey in the wilderness, Mabel followed with a step as elastic as that of the Indian, keeping close in the rear of her companions. For the first half mile no other caution beyond a rigid silence was observed; but as the party drew nearer to the spot where the fire was known to be, much greater care became necessary.

The forest, as usual, had little to intercept the view below the branches but the tall straight trunks of trees. Everything belonging to vegetation had struggled towards the light, and beneath the leafy canopy one walked, as it might be, through a vast natural vault, upheld by myriads of rustic columns. These columns or trees, however, often served to conceal the adventurer, the hunter, or the foe; and, as Arrowhead swiftly approached the spot where his practised and unerring senses told him the strangers ought to be, his footstep gradually became lighter, his eye more vigilant, and his person was more carefully concealed.

“See, Saltwater,” said he exulting, pointing through the vista of trees; “pale-face fire!”

“By the Lord, the fellow is right!” muttered Cap; “there they are, sure enough, and eating their grub as quietly as if they were in the cabin of a three-decker.”

“Arrowhead is but half right!” whispered Mabel, “for there are two Indians and only one white man.”

“Pale-faces,” said the Tuscarora, holding up two fingers; “red man,” holding up one.

“Well,” rejoined Cap, “it is hard to say which is right and which is wrong. One is entirely white, and a fine comely lad he is, with an air of respectability about him; one is a red-skin as plain as paint and nature can make him; but the third chap is half-rigged, being neither brig nor schooner.”

“Pale-faces,” repeated Arrowhead, again raising two fingers, “red man,” showing but one.

“He must be right, uncle; for his eye seems never to fail. But it is now urgent to know whether we meet as friends or foes. They may be French.”

“One hail will soon satisfy us on that head,” returned Cap. “Stand you behind the tree, Magnet, lest the knaves take it into their heads to fire a broadside without a parley, and I will soon learn what colors they sail under.”

The uncle had placed his two hands to his mouth to form a trumpet, and was about to give the promised hail, when a rapid movement from the hand of Arrowhead defeated the intention by deranging the instrument.

“Red man, Mohican,” said the Tuscarora; “good; pale-faces, Yengeese.”

“These are heavenly tidings,” murmured Mabel, who little relished the prospect of a deadly fray in that remote wilderness. “Let us approach at once, dear uncle, and proclaim ourselves friends.”

“Good,” said the Tuscarora “red man cool, and know; pale-face hurried, and fire. Let the squaw go.”

“What!” said Cap in astonishment; “send little Magnet ahead as a lookout, while two lubbers, like you and me, lie-to to see what sort of a landfall she will make! If I do, I — “

“It is wisest, uncle,” interrupted the generous girl, “and I have no fear. No Christian, seeing a woman approach alone, would fire upon her; and my presence will be a pledge of peace. Let me go forward, as Arrowhead wishes, and all will be well. We are, as yet, unseen, and the surprise of the strangers will not partake of alarm.”

“Good,” returned Arrowhead, who did not conceal his approbation of Mabel’s spirit.

“It has an unseaman-like look,” answered Cap; “but, being in the woods, no one will know it. If you think, Mabel — “

“Uncle, I know. There is no cause to fear for me; and you are always nigh to protect me.”

“Well, take one of the pistols, then — “

“Nay, I had better rely on my youth and feebleness,” said the girl, smiling, while her color heightened under her feelings. “Among Christian men, a woman’s best guard is her claim to their protection. I know nothing of arms, and wish to live in ignorance of them.”

The uncle desisted; and, after receiving a few cautious instructions from the Tuscarora, Mabel rallied all her spirit, and advanced alone towards the group seated near the fire. Although the heart of the girl beat quick, her step was firm, and her movements, seemingly, were without reluctance. A deathlike silence reigned in the forest, for they towards whom she approached were too much occupied in appeasing their hunger to avert their looks for an instant from the important business in which they were all engaged. When Mabel, however, had got within a hundred feet of the fire, she trod upon a dried stick, and the trifling noise produced by her light footstep caused the Mohican, as Arrowhead had pronounced the Indian to be, and his companion, whose character had been thought so equivocal, to rise to their feet, as quick as thought. Both glanced at the rifles that leaned against a tree; and then each stood without stretching out an arm, as his eyes fell on the form of the girl. The Indian uttered a few words to his companion, and resumed his seat and his meal as calmly as if no interruption had occurred. On the contrary, the white man left the fire, and came forward to meet Mabel.

The latter saw, as the stranger approached that she was about to be addressed by one of her own color, though his dress was so strange a mixture of the habits of the two races, that it required a near look to be certain of the fact. He was of middle age; but there was an open honesty, a total absence of guile, in his face, which otherwise would not have been thought handsome, that at once assured Magnet she was in no danger. Still she paused.

“Fear nothing, young woman,” said the hunter, for such his attire would indicate him to be; “you have met Christian men in the wilderness, and such as know how to treat all kindly who are disposed to peace and justice. I am a man well known in all these parts, and perhaps one of my names may have reached your ears. By the Frenchers and the red-skins on the other side of the Big Lakes, I am called La Longue Carabine; by the Mohicans, a just-minded and upright tribe, what is left of them, Hawk Eye; while the troops and rangers along this side of the water call me Pathfinder, inasmuch as I have never been known to miss one end of the trail, when there was a Mingo, or a friend who stood in need of me, at the other.”

This was not uttered boastfully, but with the honest confidence of one who well knew that by whatever name others might have heard of him, who had no reason to blush at the reports. The effect on Mabel was instantaneous. The moment she heard the last sobriquet she clasped her hands eagerly and repeated the word “Pathfinder!”

“So they call me, young woman, and many a great lord has got a title that he did not half so well merit; though, if truth be said, I rather pride myself in finding my way where there is no path, than in finding it where there is. But the regular troops are by no means particular, and half the time they don’t know the difference between a trail and a path, though one is a matter for the eye, while the other is little more than scent.”

“Then you are the friend my father promised to send to meet us?”

“If you are Sergeant Dunham’s daughter, the great Prophet of the Delawares never uttered more truth.”

“I am Mabel; and yonder, hid by the trees, are my uncle, whose name is Cap, and a Tuscarora called Arrowhead. We did not hope to meet you until we had nearly reached the shores of the lake.”

“I wish a juster-minded Indian had been your guide,” said Pathfinder; “for I am no lover of the Tuscaroras, who have travelled too far from the graves of their fathers always to remember the Great Spirit; and Arrowhead is an ambitious chief. Is the Dew-of-June with him?”

“His wife accompanies us, and a humble and mild creature she is.”

“Ay, and true-hearted; which is more than any who know him will say of Arrowhead. Well, we must take the fare that Providence bestows, while we follow the trail of life. I suppose worse guides might have been found than the Tuscarora; though he has too much Mingo blood for one who consorts altogether with the Delawares.”

“It is, then, perhaps, fortunate we have met,” said Mabel.

“It is not misfortunate, at any rate; for I promised the Sergeant I would see his child safe to the garrison, though I died for it. We expected to meet you before you reached the Falls, where we have left our own canoe; while we thought it might do no harm to come up a few miles, in order to be of service if wanted. It is lucky we did, for I doubt if Arrowhead be the man to shoot the current.”

“Here come my uncle and the Tuscarora, and our parties can now join.” As Mabel concluded, Cap and Arrowhead, who saw that the conference was amicable, drew nigh; and a few words sufficed to let them know as much as the girl herself had learned from the strangers. As soon as this was done, the party proceeded towards the two who still remained near the fire.

 

CHAPTER II.

Yea! long as Nature’s humblest child Hath kept her temple undefiled By simple sacrifice, Earth’s fairest scenes are all his own, He is a monarch and his throne Is built amid the skies! WILSON.

 

The Mohican continued to eat, though the second white man rose, and courteously took off his cap to Mabel Dunham. He was young, healthful, and manly in appearance; and he wore a dress which, while it was less rigidly professional than that of the uncle, also denoted one accustomed to the water. In that age, real seamen were a class entirely apart from the rest of mankind, their ideas, ordinary language, and attire being as strongly indicative of their calling as the opinions, speech, and dress of a Turk denote a Mussulman. Although the Pathfinder was scarcely in the prime of