Try him, Judith, when he awakes, and
see the virtue of a smile."
Deerslayer laughed, in his own manner, as he concluded, and then he
intimated to the patient-looking, but really impatient Chingachgook,
his readiness to proceed. As the young man entered the canoe, the
girl stood immovable as stone, lost in the musings that the language
and manner of the other were likely to produce. The simplicity
of the hunter had completely put her at fault; for, in her narrow
sphere, Judith was an expert manager of the other sex; though in
the present instance she was far more actuated by impulses, in all
she had said and done, than by calculation. We shall not deny that
some of Judith's reflections were bitter, though the sequel of the
tale must be referred to, in order to explain how merited, or how
keen were her sufferings.
Chingachgook and his pale-face friend set forth on their hazardous
and delicate enterprise, with a coolness and method that would have
done credit to men who were on their twentieth, instead of being
on their first, war-path. As suited his relation to the pretty
fugitive, in whose service they were engaged, the Indian took his
place in the head of the canoe; while Deerslayer guided its movements
in the stern.
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