The Pathfinder
or
The Inland Sea

By James Fenimore Cooper



PREFACE.

The plan of this tale suggested itself to the writer many years
since, though the details are altogether of recent invention. The
idea of associating seamen and savages in incidents that might be
supposed characteristic of the Great Lakes having been mentioned
to a Publisher, the latter obtained something like a pledge from
the Author to carry out the design at some future day, which pledge
is now tardily and imperfectly redeemed.

The reader may recognize an old friend under new circumstances in
the principal character of this legend. If the exhibition made of
this old acquaintance, in the novel circumstances in which he now
appears, should be found not to lessen his favor with the Public,
it will be a source of extreme gratification to the writer, since
he has an interest in the individual in question that falls little
short of reality. It is not an easy task, however, to introduce
the same character in four separate works, and to maintain the
peculiarities that are indispensable to identity, without incurring
a risk of fatiguing the reader with sameness; and the present
experiment has been so long delayed quite as much from doubts of
its success as from any other cause. In this, as in every other