top of the oak. The leaves were unusually agitated; the dangerous rifle fell from its commanding elevation, and after a few moments of vain struggling, the form of the savage was seen swinging in the wind, while he grasped a ragged and naked branch of the tree with his hands clenched in desperation.
"Give him, in pity, give him, the contents of another rifle!" cried Duncan, turning away his eyes in horror from the spectacle of a fellow creature in such awful jeopardy.
"Not a karnel!" exclaimed the obdurate Hawk-eye; "his death is certain, and we have no powder to spare, for Indian rights, sometimes, last for days; 'tis their scalps, or ours!—and God, who made us, has put into our natures the craving after life!"
Against this stern and unyielding morality, supported, as it was, by such visible policy, there was no appeal. From that moment the yells in the forest once more ceased, the fire was suffered to decline, and all eyes, those of friends, as well as enemies, became fixed on the hopeless condition of
