Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 3).djvu/296

simple dwellers in the woods with the strangers who had thus transiently visited them, was not so easily broken. Years passed away before the traditionary tale of the white maiden, and of the young warrior of the Mohicans, ceased to beguile the long nights and tedious marches of their weariness, or to animate their youthful and brave with a desire for vengeance against their natural enemies. Neither were the secondary actors in all these momentous incidents immediately forgotten. Through the medium of the scout, who served for years afterwards as a link between them and civilized life, they learned, in answer to their inquiries, that the "gray-head" was speedily gathered to his fathers: borne down, as was erroneously believed, by his military misfortunes; and that the "open hand" had conveyed his surviving daughter far into the settlements of the "pale faces," where her tears had, at last, ceased to flow, and had been succeeded by the bright smiles which were better suited to her happy and joyous nature.