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 added, "you are right, boy; here is the patch we saw so often on the other chase. And the fellow will drink when he can get an opportunity; your drinking Indian always learns to walk with a wider toe than the natural savage, it being the gift of a drunkard, whether of a white or red skin. 'Tis just the length and breadth too! look at it, Sagamore; you measured the prints more than once, when we hunted the varments from Glenn's to the health-springs."

Chingachgook complied, and after finishing his short examination, he arose, and with a quiet and grave demeanour, he merely pronounced, though with a foreign accent, the word—

"Magua."

"Ay, 'tis a settled thing; here then have passed the dark hair and Magua."

"And not Alice?" demanded the startled Heyward.

"Of her we have not yet seen the signs," returned the scout, looking closely around at the trees, the bushes, and the ground. "What have we there! Uncas, bring