her arm and yawned, as if overcome with a desire to sleep. The
chirrup was again heard, and the girl felt satisfied as to the
position of her lover, though the strong light in which she herself
was placed, and the comparative darkness in which the adventurers
stood, prevented her from seeing their heads, the only portions
of their forms that appeared above the ridge at all. The tree
against which they were posted had a dark shadow cast upon it by
the intervention of an enormous pine that grew between it and the
fire, a circumstance which alone would have rendered objects within
its cloud invisible at any distance. This Deerslayer well knew,
and it was one of the reasons why he had selected this particular
tree.

The moment was near when it became necessary for Hist to act. She
was to sleep in a small hut, or bower, that had been built near where
she stood, and her companion was the aged hag already mentioned.
Once within the hut, with this sleepless old woman stretched across
the entrance, as was her nightly practice, the hope of escape was
nearly destroyed, and she might at any moment be summoned to her
bed. Luckily, at this instant one of the warriors called to the
old woman by name, and bade her bring him water to drink. There
was a delicious spring on the northern side of the point, and the
hag took a gourd from a branch and, summoning Hist to her side,
she moved towards the summit of the ridge, intending to descend
and cross the point to the natural fountain. All this was seen
and understood by the adventurers, and they fell back into the
obscurity, concealing their persons by trees, until the two females
had passed them. In walking, Hist was held tightly by the hand.
As she moved by the tree that hid Chingachgook and his friend the
former felt for his tomahawk, with the intention to bury it in the