One moccasin like another! you may as well say that one foot is like another; though we all know that some are long, and others short; some broad and others narrow; some with high, and some with low insteps; some intoed, and some out. One moccasin is no more like another than one book is like another: though they who can read in one are seldom able to tell the marks of the other. Which is all ordered for the best, giving to every man his natural advantages. Let me get down to it, Uncas; neither book nor moccasin is the worse for having two opinions, instead of one. The scout stooped to the task, and instantly added:

You are right, boy; here is the patch we saw so often in the other chase. And the fellow will drink when he can get an opportunity; your drinking Indian always learns to walk with a wider toe than the natural savage, it being the gift of a drunkard to straddle, whether of white or red skin. 'Tis just the length and breadth, too! look at it, Sagamore; you measured the prints more than once, when we hunted the varmints from Glenn's to the health springs.

Chingachgook complied; and after finishing his short examination, he arose, and with a quiet demeanor, he merely pronounced the word:

Magua!

Ay, 'tis a settled thing; here, then, have passed the dark-hair and Magua.

And not Alice? demanded Heyward.

Of her we have not yet seen the signs, returned the scout, looking closely around at the trees, the bushes and the ground. What have we there? Uncas, bring hither the thing you see dangling from yonder thorn-bush.

When the Indian had complied, the scout received the prize, and holding it on high, he laughed in his silent but heartfelt manner.

'Tis the tooting we'pon of the singer! now we shall have a trail a priest might travel, he said. Uncas, look for the marks of a shoe that is long enough to uphold six feet two of tottering human flesh. I begin to have some hopes of the fellow, since he has given up squalling to follow some better trade.

At least he has been faithful to his trust, said Heyward. And Cora and Alice are not without a friend.

Yes, said Hawkeye, dropping his rifle, and leaning on it with an air of visible contempt, he will do their singing. Can he slay a buck for their dinner; journey by the moss on the beeches, or cut the throat of a Huron? If not, the first catbird¹ he meets is the cleverer of the two. Well, boy, any signs of such a foundation?

Here is something like the footstep of one who has worn a shoe; can it be that of our friend?

Touch the leaves lightly or you'll disconsart the formation. That! that is the print of a foot, but 'tis the dark-hair's; and small it is, too, for one of such a noble height and grand appearance. The singer would cover it with his heel.

Where! let me look on the footsteps of my child, said Munro, shoving the bushes aside, and bending fondly over the nearly obliterated impression. Though the tread which had left the mark had been light and rapid, it ws still plainly visible. The aged soldier examined it with eyes that grew dim as he gazed; nor did he rise from this stooping posture until Heyward saw that he had watered the trace of his daughter's passage with a scalding tear. Willing to divert a distress which threatened each moment to break through the restraint of appearances, by giving the veteran something to do, the young man said to the scout:

As we now possess these infallible signs, let us commence our march. A moment, at such a time, will appear an age to the captives.