reliance on his prudence and address. The principal difficulty now existed with June, for Mabel had seen too much of her fidelity to her own people, relieved as it was by sympathy for herself, to believe she would consent to a hostile Indian's entering the block-house, or indeed to her leaving it, with a view to defeat Arrowhead's plans. The half hour that succeeded the discovery of the presence of the Great Serpent, was the most painful of Mabel Dunham's life. She saw the means of effecting all she wished, as it might be within reach of her hand, and yet it eluded her grasp. She knew June's decision and coolness, notwithstanding all her gentleness and womanly feeling, and at last she came reluctantly to the conclusion that there was no other way of attaining her end, than by deceiving her tried companion and protector. It was revolting to one as sincere and natural, as pure of heart and as much disposed to ingenuousness as Mabel Dunham, to practise deception on a friend like June; but her own father's life was at stake, her companion would receive no positive injury, and she had feelings and interests directly touching herself, that would have removed greater scruples.

As soon as it was dark, Mabel's heart began to beat with violence; and she adopted and changed her plan of proceedings, at least a dozen times in the course of a single hour. June was always the source of her greatest embarrassment; for she did not well see, firstly, how she was to ascertain when Chingachgook was at the door, where she doubted not he would soon appear; and, secondly, how she was to admit him, without giving the alarm to her watchful companion. Time pressed, however; for the Mohican. might come and go away again, unless she was ready to receive him. It would be too hazardous to the Delaware to remain long on the island; and it became absolutely necessary to determine on some course, even at the risk of choosing one that was indiscreet. After running over various projects in her mind, therefore, Mabel came to her companion, and said, with as much calmness as she could assume

"Are you not afraid, June, now your people believe Pathfinder is in the block-house, that they will come, and try to set it on fire?"

"No t'ink such t'ing. No burn block-house. Block-house good: got no scalp."

“June, we cannot know. They hid, because they believed what I told them of Pathfinder's being with us." "Believe fear. Fear come quick, go quick. Fear make run away; wit make come back. Fear make warrior fool, as well as young girl."

Here June laughed, as her sex is apt to laugh, when anything particularly ludicrous crosses their youthful fancies.

"I feel uneasy, June; and wish you yourself would go up again to the roof, and look out upon the island, to make certain that nothing is plotting against us; you know the signs of what your people intend to do better than I."

"June go, Lily wish; but very well know that Indian sleep wait for 'e fader. Warrior eat, drink, sleep, all time, when don't fight, and go on war-trail. Den never sleep, eat, drink-never feel. Warrior sleep, now."

"God send it may be so: but go up, dear June, and look well about you. Danger may come when we least expect it."

She was

June arose, and prepared to ascend to the roof; but she paused, with her foot on the first round of the ladder. Mabel's heart beat so violently, that she was fearful its throbs would be heard; and she fancied that some gleamings of her real intentions had crossed the mind of her friend. right, in part; the Indian woman having actually stopped to consider whether there was any indiscretion in what she was about to do. At first, the suspicion that Mabel intended to escape flashed across her mind; then she rejected it, on the ground that the pale-face had no means of getting off the island, and that the block-house was much the most secure place she could find. The next thought was, that Mabel had detected some sign of the near approach of her father. This idea, too, lasted but an instant; for June entertained some such opinion of her companion's ability to understand symptoms of this sort-symptoms that had escaped her own sagacity— as a woman of high fashion entertains of the accomplishments of her maid. Nothing else in the same way offering, she began slowly to mount the ladder.

Just as she reached the upper floor, a lucky thought suggested itself to our heroine; and, by expressing it in a hurried, but natural manner, she gained a great advantage in executing her projected scheme.

*

"I will go down," she said, " and listen by the door, June; while you are on the roof; and we will thus be on our guard, at the same time, above and below."

Though June thought this savoured of unnecessary caution, well knowing no one could enter the building, unless aided from within, nor any serious danger menace them from the exterior, without giving sufficient warning, she attributed the proposition to Mabel's ignorance and alarm; and, as it was made apparently with frankness, it was received without distrust. By these means, our heroine was enabled to descend to the door, as her friend ascended to the roof; and June felt no unusual inducement to watch her. The distance between the two was now too great to admit of conversation; and, for three or four minutes, one was occupied in looking about her, as well as the darkness would allow, and the other, in listening at the door, with as much intentness, as if all her senses were absorbed in the single faculty of hearing.

June discovered nothing from her elevated stand; the obscurity, indeed, almost forbade the hope of such a result, but it would not be easy to describe the sensation with which Mabel thought she perceived a slight and guarded push against the door. Fearful that all might not be as she wished, and anxious to let Chingachgook know that she was near, she began, though in tremulous and low notes, to sing. So profound was the stillness at the moment, that the sound of the unsteady warbling ascended to the roof, and in a minute June began to descend. A slight tap at the door was heard immediately after. Mabel was bewildered, for there was no time to lose. Hope proved stronger than fear, and with unsteady hands, she commenced unbarring the door. The moccasin of June was heard on the floor above her, when only a single bar was turned. The second was released as her form reached half-way down the lower ladder. "What you do!" exclaimed June, angrily..-" Run awaymad-leave block-house? Block-house good."-The hands of both were on the last bar, and it would have been cleared from the fastenings, but for a vigorous shove from without, which jammed the wood. A short struggle ensued, though both were disinclined to violence. June would probably have prevailed, had not another and a more vigorous push from

without forced the bar past the trifling impediment that held it, when the door opened. The form of a man was seen to enter, and both the females rushed up the ladder, as if equally afraid of the consequences. The stranger secured the door, and, first examining the lower room with great care, he cautiously ascended the ladder. June, as soon as it became dark, had closed the loops of the principal floor, and lighted a candle. By means of this dim taper, then, the two females stood in expectation, waiting to ascertain the person of their visiter, whose wary ascent of the ladder was distinctly audible, though sufficiently deliberate. It would not be easy to say which was the most astonished on finding, when the stranger had got through the trap, that Pathfinder stood before them?

"God be praised!" Mabel exclaimed, for the idea that the block-house would be impregnable with such a garrison, at once crossed her mind. "Oh! Pathfinder, what has become of my father?"

"The sarjeant is safe, as yet, and victorious, though it is not in the gift of man to say what will be the ind of it. Is not that the wife of Arrowhead, skulking in the corner, there?"

"Speak not of her reproachfully, Pathfinder; I owe her my life my present security;-tell me what has happened to my father's party, why you are here, and I will relate all the horrible events that have passed upon this island."

"Few words will do the last, Mabel; for one used to Indian deviltries needs but little explanations on such a subject. Every thing turned out as we had hoped with the expedition, for the Sarpent was on the look-out, and he met us with all the information heart could desire. We ambushed three boats, druv' the Frenchers out of them, got possession and sunk them, according to orders, in the deepest part of the channel; and the savages of Upper Canada will fare badly for Indian goods this winter. Both powder and ball, too, will be scarcer among them, than keen hunters and actyve warriors may relish. We did not lose a man, or have even a skin barked; nor do I think the inemy suffered to speak of. In short, Mabel, it has been just such an expedition as Lundie likes; much harm to the foe, and little harm to ourselves."

"Ah! Pathfinder, I fear when Major Duncan comes to hear the whole of the sad tale, he will find reason to regret he ever undertook the affair!"

"I know what you mean-I know what you mean; but, by telling my story straight, you will understand it better As soon as the sarjeant found himself successful, he sent me and the Sarpent off in canoes, to tell you how matters had turned out, and he is following with the two boats; which being so much heavier, cannot arrive before morning. I parted from Chingachgook this forenoon, it being agreed that he should come up one set of channels, and I another, to see that the path was clear. I've not seen the chief since."

Mabel now explained the manner in which she had discovered the Mohican, and her expectation that he would yet come to the block-house.

"Not he-not he!—A regular scout will never get behind walls, or logs, so long as he can keep the open air and find useful employment. I should not have come myself, Mabel, but I promised the sarjeant to comfort you, and to look after your safety. Ah's me! I reconnoitred the island with a heavy heart this forenoon; and there was a bitter hour when I fancied you might be among the slain.”

"By what lucky accident were you prevented from paddling up boldly to the island, and from falling into the hands of the enemy?"

"By such an accident, Mabel, as Providence employs to tell the hound where to find the deer, and the deer how to throw off the hound. No-no-these artifices and deviltries with dead bodies, may deceive the soldiers of the 55th, and the king's officers; but they are all lost upon men who have passed their days in the forest. I came down the channel in face of the pretended fisherman, and, though the riptyles have set up the poor wretch with art, it was not ingenious enough to take in a practysed eye. The rod was held too high, for the 55th have learned to fish at Oswego, if they never knew how before; and then the man was too quiet for one who got neither prey nor bite. But we never come in upon a post blindly; and I have lain outside a garrison a whole night, because they had changed their sentries and their mode of standing guard. Neither the Sarpent nor myself would be