Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 1).djvu/65

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE MOHICANS.
49

came from the red sky of the morning, over the salt lake, and did their work much after the fashion that had been set them by yours; then let God judge the matter between us, and friends spare their words!"

"My fathers fought with the naked red-man!" returned the Indian, sternly, in the same language; "Is there no difference, Hawk-eye, between the stone-headed arrow of the warrior, and the leaden bullet with which you kill?"

"There is reason in an Indian, though nature has made him with a red skin!" said the white man, shaking his head, like one on whom such an appeal to his justice was not thrown away. For a moment he appeared to be conscious of having the worst of the argument, then rallying again, he answered to the objection of his antagonist in the best manner his limited information would allow: "I am no scholar, and I care not who knows it; but judging from what I have seen at deer chaces and squirrel hunts, of the sparks below, I should