is a treacherous carpet for a flying party to tread on, but wood and stone take no print from a moccasin. Had you worn your armed boots there might, indeed, have been something to fear! but with the deer-skin suitably prepared a man may trust himself generally on rocks with safety. Shove in the canoe nigher to the land, Uncas; this sand will take a stamp as easily as the butter of the Butchers on the Mohawk. Softly, lad, softly; it must not touch the beach, or the knaves will know by what road we have left the place."
The young man observed the precaution; and the scout, laying a board from the ruins to the canoe, made a sign for the two officers to enter. When this was done, every thing was studiously restored to its former disorder; and then Hawk-eye succeeded in reaching his little birchin vessel, without leaving behind him any of those marks which he appeared so much to dread. Heyward was silent until the Indians had cautiously paddled the canoe some distance from the fort, and within the broad and dark shadow that fell from the eastern
