Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 1).djvu/280

 seen leaping, with a single bound into the centre of a thicket of low bushes, which clung along its sides. The Delawares, who had believed their enemy dead, uttered their exclamation of surprise, and were following with speed and clamour, 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 prejudices contributed so largely to veil his natural sense of justice in all matters, which concerned the Mingoes; "a lying and deceitful varlet as he is! An honest Delaware now, being fairly vanquished, would have laid still and been knocked on the head, but these knavish Maquas cling to life like so many cats-o'-the-mountain. Let him go—let him go; 'tis but one man, and he without either rifle or bow, many a long mile from his French commerades; and, like a rattler that has lost his fangs, he can do no farther mischief until such time as he, and we too, may leave the prints of our moccasins over