of such opinions. One life is sufficient for our present wants;
and there may yet be occasion to use Killdeer in behalf of the
Sarpent, who has done an untimorsome thing to let them rampant
devils so plainly know that he is in their neighborhood. As I'm
a wicked sinner, there is one of them prowling along the bank this
very moment, like one of the boys of the garrison skulking behind
a fallen tree to get a shot at a squirrel!"

As the Pathfinder pointed with his finger while speaking, the
quick eye of Jasper soon caught the object towards which it was
directed. One of the young warriors of the enemy, burning with a
desire to distinguish himself, had stolen from his party towards
the cover in which Chingachgook had concealed himself; and as the
latter was deceived by the apparent apathy of his foes, as well as
engaged in some further preparations of his own, he had evidently
obtained a position where he got a sight of the Delaware. This
circumstance was apparent by the arrangements the Iroquois was
making to fire, for Chingachgook himself was not visible from the
western side of the river. The rift was at a bend in the Oswego,
and the sweep of the eastern shore formed a curve so wide that
Chingachgook was quite near to his enemies in a straight direction,
though separated by several hundred feet on the land, owing to
which fact air lines brought both parties nearly equidistant from
the Pathfinder and Jasper. The general width of the river being
a little less than two hundred yards, such necessarily was about
the distance between his two observers and the skulking Iroquois.

"The Sarpent must be thereabouts," observed Pathfinder, who never
turned his eye for an instant from the young warrior; "and yet he
must be strangely off his guard to allow a Mingo devil to get his