The height of this rock could scarcely
equal six feet, and, as has been said, its shape was not unlike
that which is usually given to beehives, or to a hay-cock. The
latter, indeed, gives the best idea not only of its form, but of
its dimensions. It stood, and still stands, for we are writing of
real scenes, within fifty feet of the bank, and in water that was
only two feet in depth, though there were seasons in which its
rounded apex, if such a term can properly be used, was covered by
the lake. Many of the trees stretched so far forward, as almost
to blend the rock with the shore, when seen from a little distance,
and one tall pine in particular overhung it in a way to form a
noble and appropriate canopy to a seat that had held many a forest
chieftain, during the long succession of unknown ages, in which
America, and all it contained, had existed apart, in mysterious
solitude, a world by itself; equally without a familiar history,
and without an origin that the annals of man can reach.
When distant some two or three hundred feet from the shore,
Deerslayer took in his sail. He dropped his grapnel, as soon as he
found the Ark had drifted in a line that was directly to windward
of the rock.
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