Perhaps it
would be true to say that these last were pleased as well as vexed
at what had just occurred. Their female sympathies were with the
lovers, while their pride was bound up in the success of their own
tribe. It is possible, too, that the superior personal advantages
of Hist rendered her dangerous to some of the younger part of the
group, and they were not sorry to find she was no longer in the
way of their own ascendency. On the whole, however, the better
feeling was most prevalent, for neither the wild condition in
which they lived, the clannish prejudices of tribes, nor their hard
fortunes as Indian women, could entirely conquer the inextinguishable
leaning of their sex to the affections. One of the girls even
laughed at the disconsolate look of the swain who might fancy
himself deserted, a circumstance that seemed suddenly to arouse
his energies, and induce him to move towards the log, on which the
prisoner was still seated, drying his clothes.
"This is Catamount!" said the Indian, striking his hand boastfully
on his naked breast, as he uttered the words in a manner to show
how much weight he expected them to carry.
"This is Hawkeye," quietly returned Deerslayer, adopting the name
by which he knew he would be known in future, among all the tribes
of the Iroquois.
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