his fashions, and I have mine; yet have we fou't, side by side, these many years, without either's thinking a hard thought consarning the other's ways. I tell him there is but one heaven and one hell, notwithstanding his traditions, though there are many paths to both."

"That is rational, and he is bound to believe you, though I fancy most of the roads to the last are on dry land. The sea is what my poor sister, Bridget, used to call a 'purifying-place,' and one is out of the way of temptation when out of sight of land. I doubt if as much can be said in favor of your lakes, up hereaway."

"That towns and settlements lead to sin, I will allow; but our lakes are bordered by the forests, and one is every day called upon to worship God in such a temple. That men are not always the same, even in the wilderness, I must admit, for the difference atween a Mingo and a Delaware is as plain to be seen as the difference atween the sun and moon. I am glad, friend Cap, that we have met, howsever, if it be only that you may tell the Big Sarpent, here, that there be lakes in which the water is salt. We have been pretty much of one mind since our acquaintance begun, and if the Mohican has only half the faith in me that I have in him, he believes all that I have told him, touching the white men's ways and Natur's laws; but it has always seemed to me that none of the red-skins have given as free a belief, as an honest man likes, to the accounts of the Big Salt Lakes, and to that of there being rivers that flow up-stream."

"This comes of getting things wrong end foremost," answered Cap, with a condescending nod. "You have thought of your lakes and rifts, as the ship, and of the ocean and the tides, as the boat. Neither Arrowhead nor the Sarpent need doubt what you have said concerning both, though I confess, myself, to some difficulty in swallowing the tale about there being inland seas at all, and still more that there is any sea of fresh water. I have come this long journey, as much to satisfy my own eyes and palate concerning these facts, as to oblige the sergeant and Magnet; though the first was my sister's husband, and I love the last like a child."

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should be so; and if they are not exactly the same as a Christian white man's, there is no harm in it. Still there are matters that belong altogether to the ordering of God's providence-and these salt and fresh water lakes are some of them. I do not pretend to account for these things, but I think it the duty of all to believe in them. For my part, I am one of them who think that the same hand which made the sweet water, can make the salt."

"Hold on there, Master Pathfinder," interrupted Cap, not without some heat; "in the way of a proper and manly faith, I will turn my back on no one, when afloat. Although more accustomed to make all snug aloft, and to show the proper canvas, than to pray, when the hurricane comes, I know that we are but helpless mortals at times, and I hope I pay reverence where reverence is due. All I mean to say, and that is rather insiniated than said, is this: which is, as you all know, simply an intimation that, being accustomed to see water in large bodies salt, I should like to taste it, before I can believe it to be fresh."

"God has given the salt-lick to the deer, and he has given to man, red-skin and white, the delicious spring at which to slake his thirst. It is onreasonable to think that he may not have given lakes of pure water to the West, and lakes of impure water to the East."

Cap was awed, in spite of his overweening dogmatism, by the earnest simplicity of the Pathfinder, though he did not relish the idea of believing a fact which, for many years, he had pertinaciously insisted could not be true. Unwilling to give up the point, and, at the same time, unable to maintain it against a reasoning to which he was unaccustomed, and which possessed equally the force of truth, faith, and probability, he was glad to get rid of the subject by evasion.

“Well, well, friend Pathfinder," he said, "we will nipper the argument where it is; and, as the sergeant has sent you to give us pilotage to this same lake, we can only try the water when we reach it. Only mark my words-I do not say that it may not be fresh on the surface; the Atlantic is sometimes fresh on the surface, near the mouths of great rivers; but rely on it, I shall show you a way of tasting the water many fathoms deep, of which you never dreamed; and then we shall know more about it."

The guide seemed content to let the matter rest, and the conversation changed.

"We are not over-consaited consarning our gifts," observed the Pathfinder, after a short pause, "and well know that such as live in the towns, and near the sea-"

ends, and the enemy that is afraid to cross it will be sartain to come round it."

"Ah! that comes of your d-d fresh-water ponds!" growled Cap, hemming so loud as to cause him instantly to repent the indiscretion. "No man, now, ever heard of a pirate's or a ship's getting round one end of the Atlantic!"

66 Mayhap the ocean has no ends?" "That it hasn't; nor sides, nor bottom. The nation that is snugly moored on one of its coasts need fear nothing from the one anchored abeam, let it be ever so savage, unless it possesses the art of ship-building. No-no-the people who live on the shores of the Atlantic need fear but little for their skins or their scalps. A man may lie down at night, in those regions, in the hope of finding the hair on his head in the morning, unless he wears a wig."

"It isn't so here. I don't wish to flurry the young woman, and therefore I will be no way particular-though she seems pretty much listening to Eau-douce, as we call him-but without the edication I have received, I should think it, at this very moment, a risky journey to go over the very ground that lies atween us and the garrison, in the present state of this frontier. There are about as many Iroquois on this side of Ontario as there be on the other. It is for this very reason, friend Cap, that the sergeant has engaged us to come out and show you the path."

"What!-do the knaves dare to cruise so near the guns of one of his majesty's works?"

"Do not the ravens resort near the carcass of the deer, though the fowler is at hand? They come this-a-way, as it might be, nat'rally. There are more or less whites passing atween the forts and the settlements, and they are sure to be on their trails. The Sarpent has come up on one side of the river, and I have come up the other, in order to scout for the outlying rascals, while Jasper brought up the canoe, like a bold-hearted sailor, as he is. The sergeant told him, with tears in his eyes, all about his child, and how his heart yearned for her, and how gentle and obedient she was, until I think the lad would have dashed into a Mingo camp, single-handed, rather than not a-come."

"We thank him-we thank him; and shall think the better of him for his readiness; though I suppose the boy has run no great risk, after all."

"Only the risk of being shot from a cover, as he forced the canoe up a swift rift, or turned an elbow in the stream, with his eyes fastened on the eddies. Of all the risky journeys, that on an ambushed river is the most risky, in my judgment, and that risk has Jasper run."

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"And why the devil has the sergeant sent for me to travel a hundred and fifty miles in this outlandish manner? Give me an offing, and the enemy in sight, and I'll play with him in his own fashion, as long as he pleases, long bowls or close quarters; but to be shot like a turtle asleep, is not to my humor. If it were not for little Magnet there, I would tack ship this instant, make the best of my way back to York, and let Ontario take care of itself, salt water or fresh | water!"

"That wouldn't mend the matter much, friend mariner, as the road to return is much longer, and almost as bad as the road to go on. Trust to us, and we will carry you through safe, or lose our scalps."

Cap wore a tight solid cue, done up in eelskin, while the top of his head was nearly bald; and he mechanically passed his hand over both, as if to make certain that each was in its right place. He was at the bottom, however, a brave man, and had often faced death with coolness, though never in the frightful forms in which it presented itself, under the brief but graphic pictures of his companion. It was too late to retreat; and he determined to put the best face on the matter, though he could not avoid muttering inwardly a few curses on the indifference and indiscretion with which his brother-in-law, the sergeant, had led him into his present dilemma.

"I make no doubt, Master Pathfinder," he answered, when these thoughts had found time to glance through his mind, "that we shall reach port in safety. What distance may we now be from the fort?"

"Little more than fifteen miles; and swift miles, too, as the river runs, if the Mingoes let us go clear."

"And I suppose the woods will stretch along, starboard and larboard, as heretofore?" "Anan?"

"I mean that we shall have to pick our way through these d―d trees!"

"Nay, nay, you will go in the canoe, and the Oswego has been cleared of its flood-wood by the troops. It will be floating down-stream, and that, too, with a swift current."

"And what the devil is to prevent these minks, of which you speak, from shooting us as we double a headland, or are busy in steering clear of the rocks?

"The Lord!-He who has so often helped others in greater difficulties. Many and many is the time that my head would have been stripped of hair, skin and all, hadn't the Lord fi't of my side. I never go into a scrimmage, friend mari

all parties will become better acquainted. We shall find out whether his flint will strike fire, and Le may come to know something of frontier tricks!"

Young Jasper smiled, for he was not averse to fun, and had been a little touched by Cap's superciliousness; but Mabel's fair face, light, agile form, and winning smiles, stood like a shield between her uncle and the intended experiment.

Perhaps the sergeant's daughter will be frightened," he said.

"Not she, if she has any of the sergeant's spirit in her. She doesn't look like a skeary thing, at all. Leave it to me, Eau-douce, and I will manage the affair alone."

"Not you, Pathfinder; you would only drown both. If the canoe goes over, I must go in it." "Well, have it so, then; shall we smoke the pipe of agreement on the bargain?

Jasper laughed, nodded his head, by way of consent, and the subject was dropped, for the party had reached the canoe, so often mentioned, and fewer words had determined much greater things between the parties.

CHAPTER III.

66 Before these fields were shorn and tilled, Full to the brim our rivers flowed;

The melody of waters filled

The fresh and boundless wood; And torrents dashed, and rivulets played, And fountains spouted in the shade."

BRYANT.

It is generally known that the waters which flow into the southern side of Ontario are, in general, narrow, sluggish, and deep. There are some exceptions to this rule, for many of the rivers have rapids, or, as they are termed in the language of the region, rifts, and some have falls. Among the latter was the particular stream on which our adventurers were now journeying. The Oswego is formed by the junction of the Oneida and the Onondaga, both of which flow from lakes; and it pursues its way, through a gentle, undulating country, a few miles, until it reaches the margin of a sort of natural terrace, down which it tumbles some ten or fifteen feet, to another level, across which it glides, or glances, or pursues its course, with the silent stealthy progress of deep water, until it throws its tribute into the broad receptacle of Ontario. The canoe in which Cap and his party had travelled from Fort Stanwix, the last military station on the Mohawk, lay by the side of this river, and into it the whole 2

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party now entered, with the exception of Pathfinder, who remained on the land, in order to shove the light vessel off.

"Let her starn drift down-stream, Jasper," said the man of the woods to the young mariner of the lake, who had dispossessed Arrowhead of his paddle, and taking his own station as steersman; "let it go down with the current. Should any of them infarnals, the Mingoes, strike our trail, or follow it to this point, they will not fail to look for the signs in the mud, and if they dis cover that we have left the shore with the nose of the canoe up-stream, it is a nat❜ral belief to think we went that-a-way."

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 one 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 stream. 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.

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