"I'll engage they do, Pathfinder.I have witnessed something of this myself, and hope I'm the better man for it.I remember once that I thought my own time had come, and the log was overhauled with a diligence I did not think myself capable of until that moment.I've not been a very great sinner, friend Pathfinder; that is to say, never on a large scale; though I daresay, if the truth were spoken, a considerable amount of small matters might be raked up against me, as well as against another man; but then, I've never committed piracy, nor high treason, nor arson, nor any of them sort of things.As to smuggling, and the like of that, why, I'm a seafaring man, and I sup-pose all callings have their weak spots.I daresay your trade is not altogether without blemish, honorable and use-ful as it seems to be?"
"Many of the scouts and guides are desperate knaves;and, like the Quartermaster here, some of them take pay of both sides.I hope I'm not one of them, though all oc-cupations lead to temptations.Thrice have I been sorely tried in my life, and once I yielded a little, though I hope it was not in a matter to disturb a man's conscience in his last moments.The first time was when I found in the woods a pack of skins that I knowed belonged to a Frencher who was hunting on our side of the lines, where he had no business to be; twenty-six as handsome beavers as ever gladdened human eyes.Well, that was a sore tempta-tion; for I thought the law would have been almost with me, although it was in peace times.But then, I remem-bered that such laws wasn't made for us hunters, and be-thought me that the poor man might have built great expectations for the next winter on the sale of his skins;and I left them where they lay.Most of our people said I did wrong; but the manner in which I slept that night convinced me that I had done right.The next trial was when I found the rifle that is sartainly the only one in this part of the world that can be calculated on as surely as Killdeer, and knowed that by taking it, or even hiding it, I might at once rise to be the first shot in all these parts.
I was then young, and by no means so expart as I have since got to be, and youth is ambitious and striving; but, God be praised! I mastered that feeling; and, friend Cap, what is almost as good, I mastered my rival in as fair a shooting-match as was ever witnessed in a garrison; he with his piece, and I with Killdeer, and before the Gene-ral in person too!" Here Pathfinder stopped to laugh, his triumph still glittering in his eyes and glowing on his sun-burnt and browned cheek."Well, the next conflict with the devil was the hardest of them all; and that was when I came suddenly upon a camp of six Mingos asleep in the woods, with their guns and horns piled in away that en-abled me to get possession of them without waking a mis-creant of them all.What an opportunity that would have been for the Sarpent, who would have despatched them, one after another, with his knife, and had their six scalps at his girdle, in about the time it takes me to tell you the story.Oh, he's a valiant warrior, that Chingachgook, and as honest as he's brave, and as good as he's honest!""And what may _you_ have done in this matter, Master Pathfinder?" demanded Cap, who began to be interested in the result; "it seems to me you had made either a very lucky, or a very unlucky landfall.""'Twas lucky, and 'twas unlucky, if you can understand that.'Twas unlucky, for it proved a desperate trial; and yet 'twas lucky, all things considered, in the ind.I did not touch a hair of their heads, for a white man has no nat'ral gifts to take scalps; nor did I even make sure of one of their rifles.I distrusted myself, knowing that a Mingo is no favorite in my own eyes.""As for the scalps, I think you were right enough, my worthy friend; but as for the armament and the stores, they would have been condemned by any prize-court in Christendom.""That they would, that they would; but then the Mingos would have gone clear, seeing that a white man can no more attack an unarmed than a sleeping inimy.No, no, I did myself, and my color, and my religion too, greater justice.I waited till their nap was over, and they well on their war-path again; and, by ambushing them here and flanking them there, I peppered the blackguards intrinsi-cally like" (Pathfinder occasionally caught a fine word from his associates, and used it a little vaguely), "that only one ever got back to his village, and he came into his wig-wam limping.Luckily, as it turned out, the great Dela-ware had only halted to jerk some venison, and was follow-ing on my trail; and when he got up he had five of the scoundrels' scalps hanging where they ought to be; so, you see, nothing was lost by doing right, either in the way of honor or in that of profit."Cap grunted an assent, though the distinctions in his companion's morality, it must be owned, were not exactly clear to his understanding.The two had occasionally moved towards the block as they conversed, and then stopped again as some matter of more interest than com-mon brought them to a halt.They were now so near the building, however, that neither thought of pursuing the subject any further; but each prepared himself for the final scene with Sergeant Dunham.
