Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 1).djvu/298

 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 gaily ornamented buskin he wore.

"Ay! 'twas judgmatical, and like themselves, though we were too expart 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 has no taint of Indian blood, I should be ashamed to 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?"

"Uncas was bold enough to say that the beasts ridden by the gentle ones," continued Hawk-eye, glancing his eyes, not without curious interest on the sorrel