Chapter 2

Yea! long as Nature's humblest child
Hath kept her temple undefiled
By simple sacrifice,
Earth's fairest scenes are all his own,
He is a monarch and his throne
Is built amid the skies!
WILSON.

The Mohican continued to eat, though the second white man rose,
and courteously took off his cap to Mabel Dunham. He was young,
healthful, and manly in appearance; and he wore a dress which,
while it was less rigidly professional than that of the uncle, also
denoted one accustomed to the water. In that age, real seamen
were a class entirely apart from the rest of mankind, their ideas,
ordinary language, and attire being as strongly indicative of
their calling as the opinions, speech, and dress of a Turk denote
a Mussulman. Although the Pathfinder was scarcely in the prime of
life, Mabel had met him with a steadiness that may have been the
consequence of having braced her nerves for the interview; but when
her eyes encountered those of the young man at the fire, they fell
before the gaze of admiration with which she saw, or fancied she
saw, he greeted her. Each, in truth, felt that interest in the
other which similarity of age, condition, mutual comeliness, and
their novel situation would be likely to inspire in the young and
ingenuous.

"Here," said Pathfinder, with an honest smile bestowed on Mabel,
"are the friends your worthy father has sent to meet you. This is
a great Delaware; and one who has had honors as well as troubles
in his day. He has an Indian name fit for a chief, but, as the
language is not always easy for the inexperienced to pronounce we
naturally turn it into English, and call him the Big Sarpent. You
are not to suppose, however, that by this name we wish to say that
he is treacherous, beyond what is lawful in a red-skin; but that he
is wise, and has the cunning which becomes a warrior. Arrowhead,
there, knows what I mean."

While the Pathfinder was delivering this address, the two Indians
gazed on each other steadily, and the Tuscarora advanced and spoke
to the other in an apparently friendly manner.

"I like to see this," continued Pathfinder; "the salutes of two
red-skins in the woods, Master Cap, are like the hailing of friendly
vessels on the ocean. But speaking of water, it reminds me of my
young friend, Jasper Western here, who can claim to know something
of these matters, seeing that he has passed his days on Ontario."

"I am glad to see you, friend," said Cap, giving the young fresh-water
sailor a cordial grip; "though you must have something still to
learn, considering the school to which you have been sent. This
is my niece Mabel; I call her Magnet, for a reason she never dreams