who once was master of these noble hills, these beautiful vales, and of this water, over which we tread. Yes, yes─I will become his bondsman─his slave! Is it not an honourable servitude, old man?"
"Old man!" repeated the Indian, solemnly, and pausing in his walk, as usual when much excited─"yes; John is old. Son of my brother! if Mohegan was young, when would his rifle be still? where would the deer hide, and he not find him? But John is old; his hand is the hand of a squaw; his tomahawk is a hatchet; brooms and baskets are his enemies─he strikes no other.─Hunger and old age come together. See, Hawk-eye! when young, he would go days and eat no thing; but should he not put the brush on the fire now, the blaze would go out. Take the son of Miquon by the hand, and he will help you."
"I'm not the man I was, I'll own, Chingachgook," returned the Leather-stocking; "but I can go without a meal now, on occasion. When we tracked the Iroquois through the Beech-woods,' they druv the game afore them, for I hadn't a morsel to eat from Monday morning, come Wednesday sundown; and then I shot as fat a buck, on the Pennsylvanny line, as you ever laid eyes on. It would have done your heart raal good to have seen the Delawares eat,─for I was out scouting and scrimmaging with their tribe, at the very time. Lord! the Indians, lad, lay still, and just waited till Providence should send them their game; but I foraged about, and put a deer up, and put him down too, 'fore he had made a dozen jumps. I was too weak, and too ravenous to stop for his flesh; so I took a good drink of his blood, and the Indians eat of his meat raw. John was there, and John knows. But then starvation would be apt to be too much for me now,
