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
of, though you may possibly have education enough to guess at it,
having some pretentions to understand the compass, I suppose."

"The reason is easily comprehended," said the young man, involuntarily
fastening his keen dark eye, at the same time, on the suffused face
of the girl; "and I feel sure that the sailor who steers by your
Magnet will never make a bad landfall."

"Ha! you do make use of some of the terms, I find, and that with
propriety; though, on the whole, I fear you have seen more green
than blue water."

"It is not surprising that we should get some of the phrases which
belong to the land; for we are seldom out of sight of it twenty-four
hours at a time."

"More's the pity, boy, more's the pity! A very little land ought
to go a great way with a seafaring man. Now, if the truth were
known, Master Western, I suppose there is more or less land all
round your lake."

"And, uncle, is there not more or less land around the ocean?"
said Magnet quickly; for she dreaded a premature display of the
old seaman's peculiar dogmatism, not to say pedantry.

"No, child, there is more or less ocean all round the land;
that's what I tell the people ashore, youngster. They are living,
as it might be, in the midst of the sea, without knowing it; by
sufferance, as it were, the water being so much the more powerful
and the largest. But there is no end to conceit in this world:
for a fellow who never saw salt water often fancies he knows more
than one who has gone round the Horn. No, no, this earth is pretty
much an island; and all that can be truly said not to be so is
water."

Young Western had a profound deference for a mariner of the ocean,
on which he had often pined to sail; but he had also a natural
regard for the broad sheet on which he had passed his life, and
which was not without its beauties in his eyes.

"What you say, sir," he answered modestly, "may be true as to the
Atlantic; but we have a respect for the land up here on Ontario."

"That is because you are always land-locked," returned Cap, laughing
heartily; "but yonder is the Pathfinder, as they call him, with
some smoking platters, inviting us to share in his mess; and I will
confess that one gets no venison at sea. Master Western, civility
to girls, at your time of life, comes as easy as taking in the
slack of the ensign halyards; and if you will just keep an eye to
her kid and can, while I join the mess of the Pathfinder and our
Indian friends, I make no doubt she will remember it."

Master Cap uttered more than he was aware of at the time. Jasper
Western did attend to the wants of Mabel, and she long remembered
the kind, manly attention of the young sailor at this their first
interview. He placed the end of a log for a seat, obtained for
her a delicious morsel of the venison, gave her a draught of pure
water from the spring, and as he sat near her, fast won his way to
her esteem by his gentle but frank manner of manifesting his care;
homage that woman always wishes to receive, but which is never so
flattering or so agreeable as when it comes from the young to those
of their own age -- from the manly to the gentle. Like most of
those who pass their time excluded from the society of the softer
sex, young Western was earnest, sincere, and kind in his attentions,
which, though they wanted a conventional refinement, which, perhaps,
Mabel never missed, had those winning qualities that prove very
sufficient as substitutes. Leaving these two unsophisticated young
people to become acquainted through their feelings, rather than
their expressed thoughts, we will turn to the group in which the
uncle had already become a principal actor.

The party had taken their places around a platter of venison steaks,
which served for the common use, and the discourse naturally partook
of the characters of the different individuals which composed
it. The Indians were silent and industrious the appetite of the
aboriginal American for venison being seemingly inappeasable, while
the two white men were communicative, each of the latter being
garrulous and opinionated in his way. But, as the dialogue will
put the reader in possession of certain facts that may render the
succeeding narrative more clear, it will be well to record it.

"There must be satisfaction in this life of yours, no doubt, Mr.
Pathfinder," continued Cap, when the hunger of the travellers was
so far appeased that they began to pick and choose among the savory
morsels; "it has some of the chances and luck that we seamen like;
and if ours is all water, yours is all land."

"Nay, we have water too, in our journeyings and marches," returned
his white companion; "we bordermen handle the paddle and the spear
almost as much as the rifle and the hunting-knife."

"Ay; but do you handle the brace and the bow-line, the wheel and
the lead-line, the reef-point and the top-rope? The paddle is a
good thing, out of doubt, in a canoe; but of what use is it in the
ship?"

"Nay, I respect all men in their callings, and I can believe the
things you mention have their uses. One who has lived, like myself,
in company with many tribes, understands differences in usages.
The paint of a Mingo is not the paint of a Delaware; and he who
should expect to see a warrior in the dress of a squaw might be
disappointed. I am not yet very old, but I have lived in the woods,
and have some acquaintance with human natur'. I never believe much
in the learning of them that dwell in towns, for I never yet met
with one that had an eye for a rifle or a trail."

"That's my manner of reasoning, Master Pathfinder, to a yarn.
Walking about streets, going to church of Sundays, and hearing
sermons, never yet made a man of a human being. Send the boy out
upon the broad ocean, if you wish to open his eyes, and let him
look upon foreign nations, or what I call the face of nature, if
you wish him to understand his own character. Now, there is my
brother-in-law, the Sergeant: he is as good a fellow as ever broke
a biscuit, in his way; but what is he, after all? Why, nothing
but a soldier. A sergeant, to be sure, but that is a sort of a
soldier, you know. When he wished to marry poor Bridget, my sister,
I told the girl what he was, as in duty bound, and what she might
expect from such a husband; but you know how it is with girls when
their minds are jammed by an inclination. It is true, the Sergeant
has risen in his calling, and they say he is an important man at
the fort; but his poor wife has not lived to see it all, for she
has now been dead these fourteen years."

"A soldier's calling is honorable, provided he has fi't only on
the side of right," returned the Pathfinder; "and as the Frenchers
are always wrong, and his sacred Majesty and these colonies are
always right, I take it the Sergeant has a quiet conscience as well
as a good character. I have never slept more sweetly than when I
have fi't the Mingos, though it is the law with me to fight always
like a white man and never like an Indian. The Sarpent, here, has
his fashions, and I have mine; and yet have we fi't side by side
these many years; without either thinking a hard thought consarning
the other's ways. I tell him there is but one heaven and one hell,
notwithstanding his traditions, though there are many paths to
both."

"That is rational; and he is bound to believe you, though, I fancy,
most of the roads to the last are on dry land. The sea is what my
poor sister Bridget used to call a 'purifying place,' and one is
out of the way of temptation when out of sight of land. I doubt
if as much can be said in favor of your lakes up hereaway."

"That towns and settlements lead to sin, I will allow; but our lakes
are bordered by the forests, and one is every day called upon to
worship God in such a temple. That men are not always the same,
even in the wilderness, I must admit for the difference between
a Mingo and a Delaware is as plain to be seen as the difference
between the sun and the moon. I am glad, friend Cap, that we have
met, however, if it be only that you may tell the Big Sarpent here
that there are lakes in which the water is salt. We have been
pretty much of one mind since our acquaintance began, and if the
Mohican has only half the faith in me that I have in him, he believes
all that I have told him touching the white men's ways and natur's
laws; but it has always seemed to me that none of the red-skins
have given as free a belief as an honest man likes to the accounts
of the Big Salt Lakes, and to that of their being rivers that flow
up stream."

"This comes of getting things wrong end foremost," answered Cap,
with a condescending nod. "You have thought of your lakes and rifts
as the ship; and of the ocean and the tides as the boat. Neither
Arrowhead nor the Serpent need doubt what you have said concerning
both, though I confess myself to some difficulty in swallowing the
tale about there being inland seas at all, and still more that
there is any sea of fresh water. I have come this long journey as
much to satisfy my own eyes concerning these facts, as to oblige
the Sergeant and Magnet, though the first was my sister's husband,
and I love the last like a child."

"You are wrong, friend Cap, very wrong, to distrust the power of
God in any thing," returned Pathfinder earnestly. "They that live
in the settlements and the towns have confined and unjust opinions
consarning the might of His hand; but we, who pass our time in His
very presence, as it might be, see things differently -- I mean,
such of us as have white natur's. A red-skin has his notions, and
it is right that it should be so; and if they are not exactly the
same as a Christian white man's, there is no harm in it. Still,
there are matters which belong altogether to the ordering of God's
providence; and these salt and fresh-water lakes are some of them.
I do not pretend to account for these things, but I think it the
duty of all to believe in them."

"Hold on there, Master Pathfinder," interrupted Cap, not without
some heat; "in the way of a proper and manly faith, I will turn
my back on no one, when afloat. Although more accustomed to make
all snug aloft, and to show the proper canvas, than to pray when
the hurricane comes, I know that we are but helpless mortals at
times, and I hope I pay reverence where reverence is due. All I
mean to say is this: that, being accustomed to see water in large
bodies salt, I should like to taste it before I can believe it to
be fresh."

"God has given the salt lick to the deer; and He has given to man,
red-skin and white, the delicious spring at which to slake his
thirst. It is unreasonable to think that He may not have given
lakes of pure water to the west, and lakes of impure water to the
east."

Cap was awed, in spite of his overweening dogmatism, by the earnest
simplicity of the Pathfinder, though he did not relish the idea
of believing a fact which, for many years, he had pertinaciously
insisted could not be true. Unwilling to give up the point and,
at the same time, unable to maintain it against a reasoning to
which he was unaccustomed, and which possessed equally the force
of truth, faith, and probability, he was glad to get rid of the
subject by evasion.

"Well, well, friend Pathfinder," said he, "we will leave the
argument where it is; and we can try the water when we once reach
it. Only mark my words -- I do not say that it may not be fresh on
the surface; the Atlantic is sometimes fresh on the surface, near
the mouths of great rivers; but, rely on it, I shall show you a way
of tasting the water many fathoms deep, of which you never dreamed;
and then we shall know more about it."

The guide seemed content to let the matter rest, and the conversation
changed.

"We are not over-conceited consarning our gifts," observed the
Pathfinder, after a short pause, "and well know that such
as live in the towns, and near the sea -- "

"On the sea," interrupted Cap.

"On the sea, if you wish it, friend -- have opportunities which do
not befall us of the wilderness. Still, we know our own callings,
and they are what I consider natural callings, and are not parvarted
by vanity and wantonness. Now, my gifts are with the rifle, and
on a trail, and in the way of game and scouting; for, though I can
use the spear and the paddle, I pride not myself on either. The
youth Jasper, there, who is discoursing with the Sergeant's daughter,
is a different cratur'; for he may be said to breathe the water, as
it might be, like a fish. The Indians and Frenchers of the north
shore call him Eau-douce, on account of his gifts in this particular.
He is better at the oar, and the rope too, than in making fires on
a trail."

"There must be something about these gifts of which you speak, after
all," said Cap. "Now this fire, I will acknowledge, has overlaid
all my seamanship. Arrowhead, there, said the smoke came from a
pale-face's fire, and that is a piece of philosophy which I hold
to be equal to steering in a dark night by the edges of the sand."

"It's no great secret," returned Pathfinder, laughing with great
inward glee, though habitual caution prevented the emission of any
noise. "Nothing is easier to us who pass our time in the great
school of Providence than to larn its lessons. We should be as
useless on a trail, or in carrying tidings through the wilderness,
as so many woodchucks, did we not soon come to a knowledge of these
niceties. Eau-douce, as we call him, is so fond of the water, that
he gathered a damp stick or two for our fire; and wet will bring
dark smoke, as I suppose even you followers of the sea must know.
It's no great secret, though all is mystery to such as doesn't
study the Lord and His mighty ways with humility and thankfulness."

"That must be a keen eye of Arrowhead's to see so slight a difference."

"He would be but a poor Indian if he didn't. No, no; it is war-time,
and no red-skin is outlying without using his senses. Every skin
has its own natur', and every natur' has its own laws, as well as
its own skin. It was many years before I could master all these
higher branches of a forest education; for red-skin knowledge
doesn't come as easy to white-skin natur', as what I suppose is
intended to be white-skin knowledge; though I have but little of
the latter, having passed most of my time in the wilderness."

"You have been a ready scholar, Master Pathfinder, as is seen by
your understanding these things so well. I suppose it would be
no great matter for a man regularly brought up to the sea to catch
these trifles, if he could only bring his mind fairly to bear upon
them."

"I don't know that. The white man has his difficulties in getting
red-skin habits, quite as much as the Indian in getting white-skin
ways. As for the real natur', it is my opinion that neither can
actually get that of the other."

"And yet we sailors, who run about the world so much, say there is
but one nature, whether it be in the Chinaman or a Dutchman. For
my own part, I am much of that way of thinking too; for I have
generally found that all nations like gold and silver, and most
men relish tobacco."

"Then you seafaring men know little of the red-skins. Have you
ever known any of your Chinamen who could sing their death-songs,
with their flesh torn with splinters and cut with knives, the fire
raging around their naked bodies, and death staring them in the
face? Until you can find me a Chinaman, or a Christian man, that
can do all this, you cannot find a man with a red-skin natur', let
him look ever so valiant, or know how to read all the books that
were ever printed."

"It is the savages only that play each other such hellish tricks,"
said Master Cap, glancing his eyes about him uneasily at the
apparently endless arches of the forest. "No white man is ever
condemned to undergo these trials."

"Nay, therein you are again mistaken," returned the Pathfinder,
coolly selecting a delicate morsel of the venison as his _bonne
bouche_; "for though these torments belong only to the red-skin
natur', in the way of bearing them like braves, white-skin natur'
may be, and often has been, agonized by them."

"Happily," said Cap, with an effort to clear his throat, "none
of his Majesty's allies will be likely to attempt such damnable
cruelties on any of his Majesty's loyal subjects. I have not
served much in the royal navy, it is true; but I have served, and
that is something; and, in the way of privateering and worrying
the enemy in his ships and cargoes, I've done my full share. But
I trust there are no French savages on this side the lake, and I
think you said that Ontario is a broad sheet of water?"

"Nay, it is broad in our eyes," returned Pathfinder, not caring
to conceal the smile which lighted a face which had been burnt by
exposure to a bright red; "though I mistrust that some may think
it narrow; and narrow it is, if you wish it to keep off the foe.
Ontario has two ends, and the enemy that is afraid to cross it will
be certain to come round it."

"Ah! that comes of your d----d fresh-water ponds!" growled Cap,
hemming so loudly as to cause him instantly to repent the indiscretion.
"No man, now, ever heard of a pirate or a ship getting round one
end of the Atlantic!"

"Mayhap the ocean has no ends?"

"That it hasn't; nor sides, nor bottom. The nation which is snugly
moored on one of its coasts need fear nothing from the one anchored
abeam, let it be ever so savage, unless it possesses the art of
ship building. No, no! the people who live on the shores of the
Atlantic need fear but little for their skins or their scalps. A
man may lie down at night in those regions, in the hope of finding
the hair on his head in the morning, unless he wears a wig."

"It isn't so here. I don't wish to flurry the young woman, and
therefore I will be in no way particular, though she seems pretty
much listening to Eau-douce, as we call him; but without the
edication I have received, I should think it at this very moment,
a risky journey to go over the very ground that lies between us
and the garrison, in the present state of this frontier. There
are about as many Iroquois on this side of Ontario as there are
on the other. It is for this very reason, friend Cap, that the
Sergeant has engaged us to come out and show you the path."

"What! do the knaves dare to cruise so near the guns of one of his
Majesty's works?"

"Do not the ravens resort near the carcass of the deer, though the
fowler is at hand? They come this-a-way, as it might be, naturally.
There are more or less whites passing between the forts and the
settlements, and they are sure to be on their trails. The Sarpent
has come up one side of the river, and I have come up the other,
in order to scout for the outlying rascals, while Jasper brought
up the canoe, like a bold-hearted sailor as he is. The Sergeant
told him, with tears in his eyes, all about his child, and how his
heart yearned for her, and how gentle and obedient she was, until
I think the lad would have dashed into a Mingo camp single-handed,
rather than not a-come."

"We thank him, and shall think the better of him for his readiness;
though I suppose the boy has run no great risk, after all."

"Only the risk of being shot from a cover, as he forced the canoe
up a swift rift, or turned an elbow in the stream, with his eyes
fastened on the eddies. Of all the risky journeys, that on an
ambushed river is the most risky, in my judgment, and that risk
has Jasper run."

"And why the devil has the Sergeant sent for me to travel a hundred
and fifty miles in this outlandish manner? Give me an offing, and
the enemy in sight, and I'll play with him in his own fashion, as
long as he pleases, long bows or close quarters; but to be shot
like a turtle asleep is not to my humor. If it were not for little
Magnet there, I would tack ship this instant, make the best of my
way back to York, and let Ontario take care of itself, salt water
or fresh water."

"That wouldn't mend the matter much, friend mariner, as the road
to return is much longer, and almost as bad as the road to go on.
Trust to us, and we will carry you through safely, or lose our
scalps."

Cap wore a tight solid queue, done up in eelskin, while the top
of his head was nearly bald; and he mechanically passed his hand
over both as if to make certain that each was in its right place.
He was at the bottom, however, a brave man, and had often faced
death with coolness, though never in the frightful forms in which
it presented itself under the brief but graphic picture of his
companion. It was too late to retreat; and he determined to put
the best face on the matter, though he could not avoid muttering
inwardly a few curses on the indiscretion with which his brother-in-law,
the Sergeant, had led him into his present dilemma.

"I make no doubt, Master Pathfinder," he answered, when these
thoughts had found time to glance through his mind, "that we shall
reach port in safety. What distance may we now be from the fort?"

"Little more than fifteen miles; and swift miles too, as the river
runs, if the Mingos let us go clear."

"And I suppose the woods will stretch along starboard and larboard,
as heretofore?"

"Anan?"

"I mean that we shall have to pick our way through these damned
trees."

"Nay, nay, you will go in the canoe, and the Oswego has been cleared
of its flood-wood by the troops. It will be floating down stream,
and that, too, with a swift current."

"And what the devil is to prevent these minks of which you speak
from shooting us as we double a headland, or are busy in steering
clear of the rocks?"

"The Lord! -- He who has so often helped others in greater
difficulties. Many and many is the time that my head would have
been stripped of hair, skin, and all, hadn't the Lord fi't of my
side. I never go into a skrimmage, friend mariner, without thinking
of this great ally, who can do more in battle than all the battalions
of the 60th, were they brought into a single line."

"Ay, ay, this may do well enough for a scouter; but we seamen like
our offing, and to go into action with nothing in our minds but
the business before us -- plain broadside and broadside work, and
no trees or rocks to thicken the water."

"And no Lord too, I dare to say, if the truth were known. Take
my word for it, Master Cap, that no battle is the worse fi't for
having the Lord on your side. Look at the head of the Big Sarpent,
there; you can see the mark of a knife all along by his left ear:
now nothing but a bullet from this long rifle of mine saved his scalp
that day; for it had fairly started, and half a minute more would
have left him without the war-lock. When the Mohican squeezes my
hand, and intermates that I befriended him in that matter, I tell
him no; it was the Lord who led me to the only spot where execution
could be done, or his necessity be made known, on account of the
smoke. Sartain, when I got the right position, I finished the
affair of my own accord. For a friend under the tomahawk is apt
to make a man think quick and act at once, as was my case, or the
Sarpent's spirit would be hunting in the happy land of his people
at this very moment."

"Come, come, Pathfinder, this palaver is worse than being skinned
from stem to stem; we have but a few hours of sun, and had better
be drifting down this said current of yours while we may. Magnet
dear, are you not ready to get under way?"

Magnet started, blushed brightly, and made her preparations for
immediate departure. Not a syllable of the discourse just related
had she heard; for Eau-douce, as young Jasper was oftener called
than anything else, had been filling her ears with a description
of the yet distant part towards which she was journeying, with
accounts of her father, whom she had not seen since a child, and
with the manner of life of those who lived in the frontier garrisons.
Unconsciously she had become deeply interested, and her thoughts
had been too intently directed to these matters to allow any of
the less agreeable subjects discussed by those so near to reach
her ears. The bustle of departure put an end to the conversation,
and, the baggage of the scouts or guides being trifling, in a few
minutes the whole party was ready to proceed. As they were about
to quit the spot, however, to the surprise of even his fellow-guides,
Pathfinder collected a quantity of branches and threw them upon the
embers of the fire, taking care even to see that some of the wood
was damp, in order to raise as dark and dense a smoke as possible.

"When you can hide your trail, Jasper," said he, "a smoke at leaving
an encampment may do good instead of harm. If there are a dozen
Mingos within ten miles of us, some of 'em are on the heights, or
in the trees, looking out for smokes; let them see this, and much
good may it do them. They are welcome to our leavings."

"But may they not strike and follow on our trail?" asked the youth,
whose interest in the hazard of his situation had much increased
since the meeting with Magnet. "We shall leave a broad path to
the river."

"The broader the better; when there, it will surpass Mingo cunning,
even, to say which way the canoe has gone - up stream or down.
Water is the only thing in natur' that will thoroughly wash out
a trail, and even water will not always do it when the scent is
strong. Do you not see, Eau-douce, that if any Mingos have seen
our path below the falls, they will strike off towards this smoke,
and that they will naturally conclude that they who began by going
up stream will end by going up stream. If they know anything,
they now know a party is out from the fort, and it will exceed even
Mingo wit to fancy that we have come up here just for the pleasure
of going back again, and that, too, the same day, and at the risk
of our scalps."

"Certainly," added Jasper, who was talking apart with the Pathfinder,
as they moved towards the wind-row, "they cannot know anything
about the Sergeant's daughter, for the greatest secrecy has been
observed on her account."

"And they will learn nothing here," returned Pathfinder, causing
his companion to see that he trod with the utmost care on the
impression left on the leaves by the little foot of Mabel; "unless
this old salt-water fish has been taking his niece about in the
wind-row, like a fa'n playing by the side of the old doe."

"Buck, you mean, Pathfinder."

"Isn't he a queerity? Now I can consort with such a sailor as
yourself, Eau-douce, and find nothing very contrary in our gifts,
though yours belong to the lakes and mine to the woods. Hark'e,
Jasper," continued the scout, laughing in his noiseless manner;
"suppose we try the temper of his blade and run him over the falls?"

"And what would be done with the pretty niece in the meanwhile?"

"Nay, nay, no harm shall come to her; she must walk round the
portage, at any rate; but you and I can try this Atlantic oceaner,
and then all parties will become better acquainted. We shall find
out whether his flint will strike fire; and he may come to know
something of frontier tricks."

Young Jasper smiled, for he was not averse to fun, and had been a
little touched by Cap's superciliousness; but Mabel's fair face,
light, agile form, and winning smiles, stood like a shield between
her uncle and the intended experiment.

"Perhaps the Sergeant's daughter will be frightened," said he.

"Not she, if she has any of the Sergeant's spirit in her. She
doesn't look like a skeary thing, at all. Leave it to me, then,
Eau-douce, and I will manage the affair alone."

"Not you, Pathfinder; you would only drown both. If the canoe goes
over, I must go in it."

"Well, have it so, then: shall we smoke the pipe of agreement on
the bargain?"

Jasper laughed, nodded his head by way of consent, and then the
subject was dropped, as the party had reached the canoe so often
mentioned, and fewer words had determined much greater things
between the parties.