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 "Go!" exclaimed Elizabeth, approaching him, with a hurried step; "you should not venture so far in the woods alone, at your time of life, Natty; indeed, it is imprudent. He is bent, Effingham, on some distant hunting."

"What Mrs. Effingham tells you, is true, Leather-stocking," said Edwards; "there can be no necessity for your submitting to such hardships now! So throw aside your pack, and confine your hunt to the mountains near us, if you will go."

"Hardship! 'tis a pleasure, children, and the greatest that is left me on this side the grave."

"No, no; you shall not go to such a distance," cried Elizabeth, smiling, and laying her white hand on his deer-skin pack; "I am right! I feel his camp-kettle and a canister of powder! he must not be suffered to wander so far from us, Oliver; remember how suddenly Mohegan dropp'd away."

"I know'd the parting would come hard, children; I know'd it would!" said Natty, "and so I got aside to look at the graves by myself, and thought if I left ye the keep-sake which the Major gave me, when we first parted in the woods, ye wouldn't take it unkind, but would know, that let the old man's body go where it might, his feelings staid behind him."

"This means something more than common!" exclaimed the youth; "where is it, Natty, that you purpose going?"

The hunter drew nigh him with a confident reasoning air, as if what he had to say would silence all objections, and replied—

"Why, lad, they tell me, that on the Big-lakes, there's the best of hunting, and a great range, without a white man on it, unless it may be one like myself. I'm weary of living in clearings,