Adventure Books

12 - The Last Of The Mohicans - James Cooper

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Duration:: 41m
Broadcast on:: 28 Jul 2024
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Go to the City of Dacono.com for more information. Chapter 12. "Clo, I am gone, Sire, and an on, Sire, I'll be with you again." From Twelfth Night. The Huron stood aghast of this sudden visitation of death on one of their band, but as they regarded the fatal accuracy of an aim which had dared to emulate an enemy at so much hazard to a friend, the name of "Let long out of being!" burst simultaneously from every lip, and was seceded by a wild and sort of plaintive howl. The cry was answered by a loud shout from a little thicket, where the incautious party had piled their arms, and at the next moment Hawkeye, too eager to load the rifle he had regained, was seen advancing upon them, brandishing the clubbed weapon and cutting the air with wide and powerful sweeps. Bold and rapid was the progress of the scout. It was exceeded by that of a light and vigorous form which bounding past him, leaped with incredible activity and daring into the very center of the Hurons, where it stood whirling a tomahawk and flourishing a glittering knife with fearful menaces in front of Cora. Quicker than the thoughts could follow those unexpected on audacious movements, an image armed in the emblematic panoply of death, glided before their eyes, and assumed a threatening attitude at the other side. The savage tormentors recoiled before these were like intruders, and uttered as they appeared in such quick succession, the often repeated and peculiar exclamations of surprise. Followed by the well-known and dreaded appellations of "Laser Fagil, legros setupent!" But the wary, invigilant leader of the Hurons was not so easily disconcerted. Using his keen eyes around the little plane, he comprehended the nature of the assault at a glance, and encouraging his followers by his voice, as well as by his example, he unsheathed his long and dangerous knife, and rushed with a loud hoop upon the expected chinchkachkok. It was the signal of a general combat. Neither party had firearms, and the contest was to be decided in the deadliest manner, hand to hand, with weapons of offense and none of defense. Unkus answered the hoop, and leaping on an enemy, with a single well-directed blow of his tomhawk, cleft him to the brain. Hayward tore the weapon of Makwa from the sapling, and rushed equally toward the fray. As the combatants were now equal in number, each singled an opponent from the adverse band. The rush and blows passed with the fury of a whirlwind, and the swiftness of lightning. Hawkeye soon got another enemy within reach of his arm, and with one sweep of his formidable weapon. He beat down the slight and inartificial defenses of his antagonist, crushing him to earth with the blow. Hayward ventured to hurl the pomahawk he had seized, too, ardent to await the moment of closing. He struck the Indian he had selected on the forehead, and checked for an instant his onward rush. Encouraged by this slight advantage, the impetuous young man continued his onset, and sprang upon his enemy with naked hands. A single instant was enough to assure him of the rashness of the measure, for he immediately found himself fully engaged, with all his activity and courage in endeavoring toward the desperate thrust made with the knife of the Iran, unable longer to foil an enemy so alert and vigilant. He threw his arms about him, and seceded in pinning the limbs of the other to his side, with an iron grasp, but one that was far too exhausting to himself to continue long. In this extremity he heard a voice near him shouting, "Exterminate the varlets! No quarter to an accursed mingo!" At the next moment the breach of Hawkeye's rifle fell on the naked head of his adversary, whose muscles appeared to wither under the shock, as he sank from the arms of Duncan, flexible and motionless. When UNKUS had brained his first antagonist, he turned like a hungry lion to seek another. The fifth and only Huron disengaged at the first onset had paused a moment, and then seeing that all around him were employed in the deadly strife. He had sought, with hellish vengeance, to complete the baffled work of revenge. Raising a shout of triumph he sprang toward the defenceless Khora, sending his keen axe as the dreadful precursor of his approach. The Tomahawk raised her shoulder, and cutting the wives which bound her to the tree, left the maiden at liberty to fly. She eluded the grasp of the savage, and reckless of her own safety, threw herself on the bosom of Alice, striving with convulsed and ill-directed fingers to tear us under the twigs which confined the person of her sister. Any other than a monster would have relented at such an act of generous devotion to the best and purest affection. But the breast of Huron was a stranger to sympathy. Seizing Khora by the rich tresses which fell in confusion about her form, he tore her from her frantic hold, and bowed her down with brutal violence to her knees. The savage drew the flowing curls through his hand, and raising them on high with an outstretched arm. He passed the knife around the exquisitely moulded head of his victim, with a taunting and exalting laugh. But he purchased this moment of fierce gratification with the loss of the fatal opportunity. It was just then the sight caught the eye of UNKUS. Starting from his footsteps he appeared for an instant darting through the air, and descending in a ball he fell on the chest of his enemy, driving him many yards from the spot, headlong and prostrate. The violence of the exertion cast the young O'Hecan at his side. They arose together, fought, and bled, each in his turn. But the conflict was soon decided. The Tomohawk of Hayward and the rifle of Hawkeye descended on the skull of the Huron at the same moment that the knife of UNKUS reached his heart. The battle was now entirely terminated, with the exception of the protracted struggle between Lironade Septidou and Lee Gross's serpent. Well did these barbarous warriors prove that they deserved those significant names, which had been bestowed for deeds in former wars. When they engaged, some little time was lost in eluding the quick and vigorous thrust, which had been aimed at their lives. Suddenly darting on each other, they closed and came to the earth, twisted together like twining serpents, in plant and subtle folds. At the moment when the victors found themselves unoccupied, the spot where these experienced and desperate combatants lay could only be distinguished by cloud of dust and leaves, which moved from the center of the little plane toward its boundary, as if raised by the passage of a whirlwind. Enraged by the different motives of filial affection, friendship and gratitude, Hayward and his companions rushed with one accord to the place, encircling the little canopy of dust which hung above the warriors. In vain did UNKUS dart around the cloud, with a wish to strike his knife into the heart of his father's foe. The threatening rifle of Hawkeye was raised and suspended in vain, while Duncan endeavored to seize the limbs of the Huron with hands that had appeared to have lost their power. Covered as they were with dust and blood, the swift evolutions of the combatants seemed to incorporate their bodies into one. The death-like-looking figure of the Mohican and the dark form of the Huron gleaned before their eyes in such quick and confused succession that the friends of the former knew not where to plant the sukering blow. It is true that there were short and fleeting moments when the fiery eyes of Mokward were seen glittering like fabled organs of the basilisk through the dusty wreath by which he was enveloped, and he read by those short and deadly glances the fate of the combat in the presence of his enemies; air, however, any hostile hand that could descend on his devoted head, its place was filled by the scowling visage of chin gosh-kook. In this manner the scene of the combat was removed from the center of the little plane to its verge, though Mohican now found an opportunity to make a powerful thrust with his knife. Mokward suddenly relinquished his grasp, and fell backward without motion, and seemingly without life. His adversary leaped on his feet, making the arches of the forest ring with the shouts of triumph. "Well done for the Delaware's, victory to the Mohicans!" cried Hawkeye, once more elevating the butt of the long and fatal rifle. A finishing blow from a man without a cross will never tell against his honor, nor rob him of his right to the scalp. But at the very moment when the dangerous weapon was in the act of descending, the subtle urine rolled swiftly from beneath the danger, over the edge of the precipice, and falling on his feet was seen leaping with a single bound into the center of a thicket of low bushes that clung along its sides. The Delaware's, who had believed their enemy dead, uttered their exclamation of surprise, were following with speed and clamor like hounds in open view of the deer, when a shrill and peculiar cry from the scout instantly changed their purpose, and recalled them to the summit of the hill. "Twas like himself!" cried the inveterate forester, whose prejudice contributed so largely to veil his natural sense of justice, in all matters which concerned the Mingos. A lying and deceitful varlet as he is, an honest Delaware now, being fairly vanquished, would have lain still, and been knocked on the head, but these navy schmock was cling to life like so many cats of the mountain. Let him go, let him go, 'tis but one man, and he without right for bow, many a long mile from his French comrades, and like a rattler that lost his fangs, he can do no further mischief, until such time as he and we, too, may leave the prince of our moccasins over a long reach of sandy plain. "See, Enchus?" he added in Delaware. "Your father is flaying the scalps already. It may be well to go around and fill the bag of bonds that are left, or we may have another of them loping through the woods, and screeching like a jay that has been winged." So saying the honest but implacable scout made the circuit of the dead into whose senseless bosoms he thrust his long knife, with as much coolness as though they had been so many brute carcasses. He had, however, been anticipated by the Elder Mohican, who had already torn the emblems of victory from the unresisting heads of the slain. But Enchus, denying his habits, we had almost said his nature, flew with instinctive delicacy accompanied by Hayward to the assistance of the females, and quickly releasing Alice placed her in the arms of Cora. We shall not attempt to describe the gratitude of the almighty disposer of events which glowed in the bosoms of the sisters, who were thus unexpectedly restored to life and to each other. Their thanksgivings were deep and silent, the offerings of their gentle spirits burning brightest and purest on the secret altars of their hearts, and their renovated and more earthly feelings, exhibiting themselves in long and fervent, those speechless caresses. As Alice rose from her knees, where she had sunk by the sight of Cora, she threw herself on the bosom of the latter, and sobbed aloud the name of their aged father, while her soft and dove-like eyes sparkled with rays of hope. "We are saved, we are saved," she murmured, "to return to the arms of our dear dear father, and his heart will not be broken with grief; and you to Cora, my sister, my more than sister, my mother, you two are spared, and Duncan," she added, looking around upon the youth with a smile of ineffable innocence, "even our own brave and noble Duncan has escaped without a hurt." To these ardent and nearly innocent words, Cora made no other answer than by straining the youthful speaker to her heart, as she bent over her, in melting tenderness. The manhood of Hayward felt no shame in dropping tears over the spectacle of affectionate rapture. In Anka stood, fresh and blood-stained from the combat, a calm and apparently an unmoved looker on it is true, but with eyes that had already lost their fierceness, and which were beaming with a sympathy that elevated him far above the intelligence, and advanced him probably centuries before the practices of his nation. During this display of emotions so natural in their situation, Hawkeye, whose vigilant distrust had satisfied itself that the heroines who disfigured the heavenly scene no longer possessed the power to interrupt its harmony, approached David, and liberated him from the bonds he had until that moment endured with the most exemplary patience. "There," exclaimed the scout, casting the last wife behind him, "you are once more master of your own limbs, though you seem not to use them with much greater judgment than that in which they were first fashioned. If advice from one who is not older than yourself, but who, having lived most of his time in the wilderness, may be said to have experience beyond his years, will give no offense, you are welcome to my thoughts, and these are, to part with the little tooting instrument in your jacket to the first fool you meet with, and buy some weapon with the money, if it only be the barrel of a horseman's pistol. By industry and care you might thus come to some preformant, for by this time I should think your eyes would plainly tell you that a carrion crow is a better bird than a mocking fresher. The one will at least remove foul sights from before the face of man, while the other is only good to brew disturbances in the woods, by cheating the ears of all that hear them. "Lorms and clarion for the battle, but the song of thanksgiving to the victory!" answered the deliberated David. "Friend," he added, thrusting forth his lean delicate hand toward Hawkeye, in kindness, while his eyes twinkled and grew moist, "I thank thee that the hairs of my head still grow, were they first rooted by providence; for though those of other men may be more glossy and curling, I have ever found my own well-suited to the brain they shelter; that I did not join myself in the battle was less owing to this inclination than to the bonds of the heathen. Valient and skillful has thou proved thyself in the conflict, and I hereby thank thee, before proceeding to discharge other and more important duties, because thou hast proved thyself well-worthy of a Christian's praise. The thing is but a trifle, and what you may often see if you carry long among us return the scout, a good deal softened toward the man of song by this unequivocal expression of gratitude. "I have got my old companion, Killdeer," he added, striking his hand on the breach of thee's rifle, and that in itself is a victory. These Iroquois are cunning, but they outwitted themselves when they placed their firearms out of reach. And had UNKUS or his father been gifted with only their common Indian patience, we should have come in upon the naves with three bullets instead of one, and that would have made a finish of the whole pack, yon loping varlate as well as his comrades, but 'twas all foreword and for the best. "Thou sayest will," returned David, "and hast caught the true spirit of Christianity. He that is to be saved will be saved, and he that is predestined to be damned will be damned. This is the doctrine of truth, and most consoling and refreshing it is to the true believer." The scout, who by this time was seated, examining into the state of his rifle with a species of parental assiguity, now looked up at the other in a displeasure that he did not effect a conceal. Roughly interrupting for the speech, "doctrine or no doctrine," said the sturdy woodsman, "tis the belief of naves and the curse of an honest man. I can credit that yonder Euron was to fall by my hand, for with my own eyes I have seen it, but nothing short of being a witness will cause me to think he has met with any reward, or that Chinggachkok there will be condemned at the final day." "You have no warranty for such an audacious doctrine, nor any covenant to support it!" cried David, who was deeply tinctured with the subtle distinctions which, in his time and more especially in his province, had been drawn around the beautiful simplicity of revelation, by endeavoring to penetrate the awful mystery of the divine nature, supplying faith by self-sufficiency, and by consequence involving those who reasoned from such human dogmas, in absurdities and doubt. Your temple is reared on the sands, and the first tempest will wash away its foundation. I demand your authorities for such an uncharitable assertion. Like other advocates of a system, David was not always accurate in his use of terms. In chapter and verse, "In which of the holy books do you find language to support you?" "Book," repeated Hawkeye, with singular and ill-concealed disdain, "do you take me for a whimpering boy, at the apron string of one of your old gals, and this good rifle on my knee, for the feather of a goose's wing? My ox's horn, for a bottle of ink, and my leather and pouch, for a cross-bart handkerchief to carry my dinner?" "Book! What have such as I, who am a warrior of the wilderness, though a man without a cross, to two with books?" I never read but in one, and the words that are written there are too simple and too plain to need much schooling, though I may boast that of forty long and hard-working years. "Would call you the volume," said David, misconceiving the other's meaning, "tis open before your eyes return the scout, and he who owns it is not a nigger of its use. I have heard it said that there are men who read in books to convince themselves there is a god. I know not but man may so deform his works in the settlement, as to leave that which is so clear in the wilderness a matter of doubt among traders and priests. If any such there be, and he will follow me from sun to sun through the windings of the forest, he shall see enough to teach him that he is a fool, and the greatest of his follies lies in striving to rise to the level of one he can never equal, be it in goodness or be it in power. The instant David discovered that he battled with a disputant who imbibed his faith from the lights of nature, eschewing all subtleties of doctrine. He willingly abandoned a controversy from which he believed neither profit nor credit was to be derived. While the scout was speaking, he had also seated himself, and producing the ready little volume and the iron rim spectacles, he prepared to discharge a duty, which nothing but the unexpected assault he had received in his orthodoxy could have so long suspended. He was, in truth, a minstrel of the western continent of a much later day, certainly then those gifted barge, who formerly sang the profane renown of barren and prince, but after the spirit of his own age and country, he was now prepared to exorcise the cunning of his craft, in celebration of, or in rather thanksgiving of, the recent victory. He waited patiently for Hawkeye to cease, then lifting his eyes together with his voice, he said aloud, "I invite you, friends, to join in praise for the signal deliverance, from the hands of barbarians and infidiles, through the comfortable and solemn tones of the tune called Northampton." Next he named the page and verse where the rhyme selected were to be found, and applied the pitch pipe to his lips, with a decent gravity that he had been want to use in the temple. This time he was, however, without any accompaniment, for the sisters were just then pouring out those tender effusions of affections, which have already been alluded to. Nothing deterred by the smallness of his audience, which in truth consisted only of the discontented scout. He raised his voice, commencing and ending the sacred song without accident or interruption of any kind. Hawkeye listened while he coly adjusted his flint and reloaded his rifle, but the sounds wanting the extraneous assistance of scene and sympathy, fell to awaken his slumbering emotions. Never minstrel or by whatever more suitable name David should be known drew upon his talents in the presence of more insensible auditors, though, considering the singleness and sincerity of his motive, it is probable that no bard of profane song ever uttered notes that ascended, so near to that throne, where all homage and praise is due. The scout shook his head, and muttering some unintelligible words among which, throat and Iroquois, were alone audible. He walked away, to collect, and to examine into the state of the captured arsenal of the urans. In this office he was now joined by Chinchotch Cook, who found his own as well as the rifle of his son among the arms. Even Hayward and David were furnished with weapons, nor was ammunition wanting to render them all effectual, when the foresters had made their selection and distributed their prizes. The scout announced that the hour had arrived when it was necessary to move. By this time the song of Gamoot had ceased, and the sisters had learned to steal the exhibition of their emotions. Aided by Duncan in the younger Mohican, the two latter descended the precipitous sides of that hill, which they had so lately ascended under so very different auspices, and whose summit had so nearly proved the scene of their massacre. At the foot they found the Narragansits browsing the urbage of the bushes, and having mounted they followed the movements of a guide, who in the most deadly straights, had so often proved himself their friend. The journey was, however, short. Hawkeye, leaving the blind path that the pheurons had followed, turned short to his right, and entering the thicket he crossed a babbling brook, and halted in a narrow dale. Under the shade of a few water-elms, their distance from the base of the fatal hill was but a few rods, and the steeds had been serviceable only in crossing the shallow stream. The scout and the Indians appeared to be familiar with the sequestered place, where they now were. For, leaning their rifle against the trees, they commenced throwing aside the dried leaves, and opening the blue clay out of which a clear and sparkling spring of bright, glancing water quickly bubbled. The white men then looked about him as they were seeking for some object, which was not to be found as readily as he expected. Some careless imps, the mall hawks with their tuskarora and onadaga brethren, have been here slaking their thirst, he muttered, and the vagabonds have thrown away the gourd. This is the way with benefits when they are bestowed on such dismembering hounds. Here has the Lord laid his hand in the midst of the howling wilderness for their good, and raised a fountain of water from the bowels of the arth, that might laugh at the richest shop of apothecaries where in all the colonies, and see the naves of trodden in the clay, and deform the cleanliness of the place. As though they were brute-beest instead of human men, Uncle silently extended toward him the desired gourd, which the spleen of Hawkeye had hitherto prevented him from observing on a branch of the elm. Filling it with water, he retired a short distance to a place where the ground was more firm and dry. Here he coly seated himself, and after taking a long and apparently a grateful draught, he commenced a very strict examination of the fragments of food left by the heurons, which had hung in a wallet on his arm. "Thank you, lad," he continued, returning the empty gourd to Angkis, "now we will see how these rampaging kurons lived when outlying in ambushments. Look at this! The violets know the better pieces of the deer, and one would think they might carve and roast a saddle equal to the best cook in the land. But everything is raw, for the Iroquois are thorough savages. Angkis, take my steel, and kin to a fire. A mouthful of tender boil will give nature a helping hand, after so long a trail. Hayward, perceiving that their guides now set about their repast in sober earnest, assisted the ladies to a light, and placed himself at their side, not unwilling to enjoy a few moments of grateful rest, after the bloody scene he had just gone through. So the culinary process was in hand, curiosity induced him, to inquire into these circumstances, which had led to their timely and unexpected rescue. "How is it that we see you so soon, my generous friend?" he asked, and without aid from the garrison of Edward, had we gone to the bend of the river, we might have been in time to rake the leaves over your bodies, but too late to have saved your scalps," coolly answered the scout. "No, no. Instead of throwing away strength and opportunity by crossing to the fort, we lay by, under the bank of the Hudson, waiting to watch the movements of the Urons." "You were, then, witnesses of all that passed?" "Not of all. For Indian sight is too keen to be easily cheated. When we kept close, a difficult matter it was, too, to keep this Mexican boy snug in the ambushment." "Ah, Angkis, Angkis. Your behavior was more like that of a curious woman, than of a warrior on his scent. Angkis permitted his eyes to turn, for an instant, on the sturdy continents of the speaker, but he neither spoke nor gave any indication of repentance. In the contrary, Hayward thought the manner of the young muhikin was disdainful, if not a little fierce, in that he suppressed passion that were ready to explode, as much in compliment to the listeners, as from the deference he usually paid to his white associate. "You saw our capture?" Hayward next demanded. "We heard it," was the significant answer. An Indian yel is plain language to men who have passed their days in the woods. But when you landed, we were driven to crawl like serpents beneath the leaves, and then we'd lost sight of you entirely, until we placed eyes on you again, trusted the trees, and ready bound for an Indian massacre. "Our rescue was the deed of providence. It was nearly a miracle that you did not mistake the path, for the heroines divided, and each band had its horses. I, there we were thrown off the scent, and might, indeed, have lost the trail, had it not been for Angus. We took the path, however, that led into the wilderness, for we judged, and judged rightly, that the savages would hold that course with their prisoners. But when we had followed it for many miles, without finding a single twig broken as I had advised, my mind misgave me, especially as all the footsteps had the prints of moccasins. "Our captors had the precaution to see us shod like themselves," said Duncan, raising a foot and exhibiting the buckskin he wore. "I was judgmentical, and like themselves, though we were too expert to be thrown from a trail by so common an invention." "To what, then, are we indebted, for our safety?" "To what?" "As a white man who has no taint of Indian blood, I should be ashamed, own, to the judgment of the young Mohican, in matters which I should know better than he, but which I can now hardly believe to be true, though my own eyes tell me it is so." "Tis extraordinary, will you not name the reason?" Duncan was bold enough to say that the beast ridden by the gentle ones, continued Hawkeye, glancing his eyes not without curious interest, on the fillies of the ladies. Planted the legs of one side, on the ground at the same time, which is contrary to the movements of all trotting forefoot at animals of my knowledge except the bear. And yet here are horses that always journey in this manner, as my own eyes have seen, and as their trail has shown for twenty long miles. "Tis the merit of the animal, they come from the shores of Narragansett Bay, in the small province of Providence Plantations, and are celebrated for their hardyhood, and the ease of this peculiar movement, though other horses are not unfrequently trained to the same. "It may be, it may be," said Hawkeye, who had listened with singular attention to this explanation. "Though I am a man who has the full blood of the whites, my judgment in deer and beaver is greater than in beast of burden. Major Effingham has many noble charges, but I have never seen one travel with such a siding-gate. True, for he would value the animals for very different properties. Still is this a breed highly esteemed and, as you witness, much honored with the burdens it is often destined to bear. The Mohicans had suspended their operations about the glimmering fire to listen, and, when Duncan had done, they looked at each other significantly. The father uttering the never-failing exclamation of surprise. The scout ruminated, like a man digesting his newly acquired knowledge, and once more stole a glance at the horses. "I dare say there are even stranger sights to be seen in the settlements," he said at length. "Nature is sadly abused by man when he once gets the mastery. It go, siding or go straight, UNKUS has seen the movement, and their trail led us on to the broken bush. The elder branch knew the prints of one of the horses was bent upward. As a lady breaks a flower from its stem, but all the rest were ragged and broken down, as if the strong hand of a man had been tearing them. Though I concluded that the cunning varments had seen the twig bent, and had torn the rest to make us believe a buck had been feeling the bowels with his antlers, I do believe your sagacity did not deceive you. For some such thing occurred." That was easy to see, added the scout, in no degree conscious of having exhibited any extraordinary sagacity, and a very different matter it was from a waddling horse. It then struck me the mingles would push for the spring, for the naves well know the virtue of its waters. "It is, then, so famous," demanded Hayward, examining with a more curious eye the secluded dell with its bubbling fountain, surrounded as it was, by earth of a deep dingy brown. Few redskins who travel south and east of the great lakes, but have heard of its qualities. "Will you taste for yourself?" Hayward took the gourd, and after swallowing a little of the water, threw it aside with grimaces of discontent. The scout laughed, in his silent but heartfelt manner, and shook his head with vast satisfaction. "Ah! You want the flavor that one gets my habit." The time was when I liked it as little as yourself. But I have come to my taste, and I now crave it, as a deer does the licks—footnote. Many of the animals of the American forest resort to those spots where salt springs are found. These are called licks, or salt licks, in the language of the country. For the circumstances that the quarter-ped is often obliged to lick the earth in order to obtain the sailing particles. These licks are great places of resort with the hunters, who way lay their game near the paths that lead to them." Their high-spiced wines are not better liked than a red-skinned relish as this water, especially when his nature is ailing. But Ankas has made his fire, and it is time we think of eating, for our journey is long and all before us. Interrupting the dialogue by this abrupt transition, the scout had instant recourse to the fragments of food, which had escaped the veracity of the heroines. A very summery process completed the simple cookery, when he and the Mohicans commenced their humble meal with the silence and characteristic diligence of men who ate in order to enable themselves to endure great and unremitting toil. When this necessary, and happily grateful duty had been performed, each of the foresters stooped and took a long and parting draft at that solitary and silent spring, footnote, the scene of the foregoing incidents is on the spot where the village of Boston now stands, one of the two principal watering places of America and footnote, around which and its sister fountains within fifty years the wealth, beauty and talents of a hemisphere were to assemble in throngs in pursuit of health and pleasure. Then Hawkeye announced his determination to proceed. The sisters resumed their saddles, Duncan and David grasped their rifles and followed on footsteps, the scout leading the advance and the Mohicans bringing up the rear. The whole party moose swiftly threw the narrow path toward the north, leaving the healing waters to mingle on heated with the adjacent brooks, and the bodies of the dead defester on the neighboring mount. Without the rights of sepulchre, a fate but too common to the warriors of the woods to excite either commiseration or comment. End of chapter 12 5280 exteriors James Hardy's sighting is a low maintenance sighting made primarily of cement that resist flame spread and repels woodborne insects and woodpeggers. For the month of July, you'll receive free rigid foam installation with the purchase of whole house sighting that's installing additional installation behind your sighting for free. But only for the month of July, call today for more details or visit 5280 exteriors.com 5280 exteriors.com, a James Hardy preferred contractor 5280 exteriors, the altitude of quality. The Dakono Music and Spirits Festival brought to you by Breckenridge Brewery and City of Dacono, go to thecityofdacono.com for more information.