station as steersman; "let it go down with the current. Should any of them infarnals, the Mingos, strike our trail, or follow it to this point, they will not fail to look for the signs in the mud, and if they discover that we have left the shore with the nose of the canoe up stream, it is a natural belief to think we went thataway."

This direction was followed; and, giving a vigorous shove, the Pathfinder, who was in the flower of his strength and activity, made a leap, landing lightly, and without disturbing its equilibrium, in the bow of the canoe. As soon as it had

reached the centre of the river, or the strength of the current, the boat was turned, and it began to glide noiselessly down the stream.

The vessel in which Cap and his niece had embarked for their long and adventurous journey, was of the canoes of bark which the Indians are in the habit of constructing, and which, by their exceeding lightness and the ease with which they are propelled, are admirably adapted to a navigation in which shoals, flood-wood, and other similar obstructions so often occur. The two men who composed its original crew had several times carried it, when emptied of its luggage, many hundred yards; and it would not have exceeded the strength of a single man to lift its weight. Still it was long, and, for a canoe, wide, a want of steadiness being its principal defect in the eyes of the uninitiated. A few hours' practice, however, in a great measure remedied this evil, and both Mabel and her uncle had learned so far to humor its movements, that they now maintained their places with perfect composure; nor did the additional weight of the three guides tax its powers in any particular degree, the breadth of the rounded bottom allowing the necessary quantity of water to be displaced, without bringing the gunwale very sensibly nearer to the surface of the Its workmanship was neat; the timbers were small, and secured by thongs; and the whole fabric, though it was so slight and precarious to the eye, was probably capable of conveying double the number of persons that it now contained.

stream.

Cap was seated on a low thwart, in the centre of the

canoe; the Big Serpent knelt near him. Arrowhead and his wife occupied places forward of both, the former having relinquished his post aft. Mabel was half reclining on some of her own effects, behind her uncle, while the Pathfinder and Eau-douce stood erect, the one in the bow and the other in the stern, each using a paddle, with a long, steady, noiseless sweep. The conversation was carried on in low tones, all the party beginning to feel the necessity of prudence, as they drew nearer to the outskirts of the fort, and had no longer the cover of the woods.

The Oswego, just at that place, was a deep, dark stream, of no great width, its still, gloomy-looking current winding its way among overhanging trees, that, in particular spots, almost shut out the light of the heavens. Here and there some half-fallen giant of the forest lay nearly across its surface, rendering care necessary to avoid the limbs; and most of the distance, the lower branches and leaves of the trees of smaller growth were laved by its waters. The picture which has been so beautifully described by our own admirable poet, and which we have placed at the head of this chapter, as an epigraph, was here realized; the earth fattened by the decayed vegetation of centuries, and black - with loam, the stream that filled the banks nearly to overflowing, and the "fresh and boundless wood," being all as visible to the eye, as the pen of Bryant has elsewhere vividly presented them to the imagination. In short, the entire scene was one of a rich and benevolent nature, before it has been subjected to the uses and desires of man; luxuriant, full of wild promise, and not without the charm of the picturesque, even in its rudest state. It will be remembered that this was in the year 175-, or long before even speculation had brought any portion of western New York within the bounds of civilization, or the projects of the adventurous. At that distant day, there were two great channels of military communication between the inhabited portion of the colony of New York, and the frontiers that lay adjacent to the Canadas: that by Lakes Champlain and George, and that by means of the Mohawk, Wood Creek, the Oneida, and the rivers we have been describing. Along both these

lines of communication military posts had been established, though there existed a blank space of a hundred miles between the last fort at the head of the Mohawk, and the outlet of the Oswego, which embraced most of the distance that Cap and Mabel had journeyed under the protection of Arrowhead.

"I sometimes wish for peace again," said the Pathfinder, "when one can range the forest without s'arching for any other enemy than the beasts and fishes. Ah's me! many is the day that the Sarpent, there, and I have passed happily among the streams, living on venison, salmon, and trout, without thought of a Mingo or a scalp! I sometimes wish that them blessed days might come back, for it is not my raal gift to slay my own kind. I'm sartain the sergeant's daughter don't think me a wretch that takes pleasure in preying on human natur'?”

At this remark, a sort of half interrogatory, Pathfinder looked behind him; and, though the most partial friend could scarcely term his sunburnt and hard features handsome, even Mabel thought his smile attractive, by its simple ingenuousness, and the uprightness that beamed in every lineament of his honest countenance.

"I do not think my father would have sent one like those you mention, to see his daughter through the wilderness, the young woman answered, returning the smile as frankly as it was given, and much more sweetly.

"That he would n't, that he would n't; the sergeant is a man of feelin', and many is the march and the fight that we have stood shoulder to shoulder in, as he would call it; though I always keep my limbs free, when near a Frencher or a Mingo."

"You are then the young friend of whom my father has spoken so often in his letters?"

"His young friend-the sergeant has the advantage of me by thirty years; yes, he is thirty years my senior, and as many my better."

"Not in the eyes of the daughter, perhaps, friend Pathfinder," put in Cap, whose spirits began to revive when he found the water once more flowing around him. "The

thirty years that you mention are not often thought to be an advantage in the eyes of girls of nineteen."

Mabel colored, and in turning aside her face, to avoid the looks of those in the bow of the canoe, she encountered the admiring gaze of the young man in the stern. As a last resource her spirited, but soft blue eyes, sought refuge in the water. Just at this moment a dull heavy sound swept up the avenue formed by the trees, borne along by a light air that hardly produced a ripple on the water.

"That sounds pleasantly," said Cap, pricking up his ears like a dog that hears a distant baying; "it is the surf on the shores of your lake, I suppose?"

"Not so not so," answered the Pathfinder; "it is merely this river tumbling over some rocks, half a mile below us."

"Is there a fall in the stream?" demanded Mabel, a still brighter flush glowing in her face.

"The devil! Master Pathfinder, or you, Mr. Oh-theDeuce," for so Cap began to style Jasper, by way of entering cordially into the border usages,—“ had you not better give the canoe a sheer, and get nearer to the shore? These water-falls have generally rapids above them, and one might as well get into the Maelstrom at once as to run into their suction.'

"Trust to us-trust to us, friend Cap," answered Pathfinder; "we are but fresh-water sailors, it is true, and I cannot boast of being much, even of that; but we understand rifts, and rapids, and cataracts; and in going down these, we shall do our endeavors not to disgrace our edication."

"In going down!" exclaimed Cap; "the devil, man! you do not dream of going down a water-fall in this eggshell of bark!"

"Sartain; the path lies over the falls, and it is much. easier to shoot them than to unload the canoe, and to carry that, and all it contains, around a portage of a mile, by hand."

Mabel turned her pallid countenance towards the young man in the stern of the canoe, for just at that moment a fresh roar of the fall was borne to her ears, by a new current

of the air, and it really sounded terrific, now that the cause was understood.

"We thought that by landing the females and the two Indians," Jasper quietly observed, "we three white men, all of whom are used to the water, might carry the canoe over in safety, for we often shoot these falls."

And we counted on you, friend mariner, as a mainstay," said Pathfinder, winking at Jasper over his shoulder, "for you are accustomed to see waves tumbling about, and without some one to steady the cargo, all the finery of the sergeant's daughter might be washed into the river, and be lost."

Cap was puzzled. The idea of going over a water-fall was perhaps more serious, in his eyes, than it would have been in those of one totally ignorant of all that pertained to boats; for he understood the power of the element, and the total feebleness of man when exposed to its fury. Still, his pride revolted at the thought of deserting the boat, while others not only courageously, but coolly, proposed to continue in it. Notwithstanding the latter feeling, and his innate as well as acquired steadiness in danger, he would probably have deserted his post, had not the images of Indians tearing scalps from the human head taken so strong hold of his fancy, as to induce him to imagine the canoe a sort of sanctuary.

"What is to be done with Magnet?" he demanded, affection for his niece raising another qualm in his conscience. "We cannot allow Magnet to land, if there are enemy's Indians near?"

"Nay; no Mingo will be near the portage, for what is a spot too public for their deviltries," answered the Pathfinder, confidently. "Natur' is natur', and it is an Injin's natur' to be found where he is least expected. No fear of him on a beaten path, for he wishes to come upon you when unprepared to meet him, and the fiery villains make it a point to deceive you, one way or another. Sheer in, Eau-douce; we will land the sergeant's daughter on the end of that log, where she can reach the shore with a dry foot."

The injunction was obeyed, and in a few minutes the