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 it as little as yourself, but I have come to my taste and I now crave it, as a deer does the licks. Your high spiced wines are not better liked than a red-skin relishes this water, especially when his natur is ailing. But Uncas 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 voracity of the Hurons. A very summary 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 draught, at that solitary and silent spring, around which and its sister fountains, within fifty years, the wealth, beauty, and talents of a hemisphere were to assemble in such throngs, in pursuit of health and pleasure. Then Hawk-eye announced