Neither appeared seriously to dread any evil
greater than captivity, and once or twice, when Hetty did speak,
she intimated the expectation that Hutter would find the means to
liberate himself. Although Judith was less sanguine on this head,
she too betrayed the hope that propositions for a ransom would come,
when the Indians discovered that the castle set their expedients
and artifices at defiance. Deerslayer, however, treated these
passing suggestions as the ill-digested fancies of girls, making
his own arrangements as steadily, and brooding over the future as
seriously, as if they had never fallen from their lips.
At length the hour arrived when it became necessary to proceed to
the place of rendezvous appointed with the Mohican, or Delaware,
as Chingachgook was more commonly called. As the plan had been
matured by Deerslayer, and fully communicated to his companions,
all three set about its execution, in concert, and intelligently.
Hetty passed into the ark, and fastening two of the canoes together, she
entered one, and paddled up to a sort of gateway in the palisadoes
that surrounded the building, through which she carried both;
securing them beneath the house by chains that were fastened within
the building.
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