"Uncas is
here," said another voice, in the same soft, guttural tones, near his
elbow; "who speaks to Uncas?"
The white man
loosened his knife in his leathern sheath, and made an involuntary
movement of the hand toward his rifle, at this sudden interruption; but the
Indian sat composed, and without turning his head at the unexpected sounds.
At the next
instant, a youthful warrior passed between them, with a noiseless step, and
seated himself on the bank of the rapid stream. No exclamation of surprise
escaped the father, nor was any question asked, or reply given, for several
minutes; each appearing to await the moment when he might speak, without
betraying womanish curiosity or childish impatience. The white man seemed to
take counsel from their customs, and, relinquishing his grasp of the rifle, he
also remained silent and reserved. At length Chingachgook turned his eyes
slowly toward his son, and demanded:
"Do the Maquas dare to leave the print of their
moccasins in these woods?"
"I have been
on their trail," replied the young Indian, "and know that they number
as many as the fingers of my two hands; but they lie hid like cowards."
"The
thieves are outlying for scalps and plunder," said the white man, whom
we shall call Hawkeye, after the manner of his companions. "That busy
Frenchman, Montcalm, will send his spies into our very camp, but he will know
what road we travel!"
"'Tis
enough," returned the father, glancing his eye toward the setting sun;
"they shall be driven like deer from their bushes. Hawkeye, let us eat
to-night, and show the Maquas that we are men to-morrow."
"I am as
ready to do the one as the other; but to fight the Iroquois 'tis necessary to find the skulkers; and to eat, 'tis necessary to get the game—talk of the
devil and he will come; there is a pair of the biggest antlers I have seen this season, moving the bushes below the hill!
Now, Uncas," he continued, in a half whisper, and laughing with a kind of
inward sound, like one who had learned to be watchful, "I will bet my
charger three times full of powder, against a foot of wampum, that I take him atwixt the eyes, and nearer to the
right than to the left."
"It cannot
be!" said the young Indian, springing to his feet with youthful eagerness;
"all but the tips of his horns are hid!"
"He's a
boy!" said the white man, shaking his head while he spoke, and addressing
the father.
"Does he think when a hunter sees a part of the creature', he
can't tell where the rest of him should be!"
Adjusting his
rifle, he was about to make an exhibition of that skill on which he so much
valued himself, when the warrior struck up the piece with his hand, saying:
"Hawkeye!
will you fight the Maquas?"
"These
Indians know the nature of the woods, as it might be by instinct!"
returned the scout, dropping his rifle, and turning away like a man who was
convinced of his error. "I must leave the buck to your arrow, Uncas, or we may kill a deer for them thieves,
the Iroquois, to eat."
The instant the
father seconded this intimation by an expressive gesture of the hand, Uncas
threw himself on the ground, and approached the animal with wary movements. When within a few yards
of the cover, he fitted an arrow to his bow with the utmost care, while the
antlers moved, as if their owner snuffed an enemy in the tainted air. In another moment the twang of the cord was heard, a
white streak was seen glancing into the bushes, and the wounded buck plunged
from the cover, to the very feet of his hidden enemy. Avoiding the horns of the
infuriated animal, Uncas darted to his side, and passed his knife across the
throat, when bounding to the edge of the river it fell, dyeing the waters with
its blood.
The Last of the Mohicans. James Fenimore Cooper
Native terms:
At the beginning
of the book the author explains the terms of the natives mentioned here. It is
advisable to take them into account in order to understand as one proceeds with
the reading.
Maquas: “In these pages, Lenni-Lenape, Lenope,
Delawares, Wapanachki, and Mohicans, all mean the same people, or tribes of the
same stock. The Mengwe, the Maquas, the Mingoes, and the Iroquois, though not
all strictly the same, are identified frequently by the speakers, being politically
confederated and opposed to those just named. Mingo was a term of peculiar
reproach, as were Mengwe and Maqua in a less degree.
The Mohicans were the possessors of the country first
occupied by the Europeans in this portion of the continent. They were,
consequently, the first dispossessed; and the seemingly inevitable fate of all
these people, who disappear before the advances, or it might be termed the
inroads, of civilization, as the verdure of their native forests falls before
the nipping frosts, is represented as having already befallen them. There is
sufficient historical truth in the picture to justify the use that has been
made of it.”
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