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New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Pathfinder

J >> James Fenimore Cooper >> The Pathfinder




"Uncle, I know. There is no cause to fear for me; and you are
always nigh to protect me."

"Well, take one of the pistols, then -- "

"Nay, I had better rely on my youth and feebleness," said the girl,
smiling, while her color heightened under her feelings. "Among
Christian men, a woman's best guard is her claim to their protection.
I know nothing of arms, and wish to live in ignorance of them."

The uncle desisted; and, after receiving a few cautious instructions
from the Tuscarora, Mabel rallied all her spirit, and advanced
alone towards the group seated near the fire. Although the heart
of the girl beat quick, her step was firm, and her movements,
seemingly, were without reluctance. A death-like silence reigned
in the forest, for they towards whom she approached were too much
occupied in appeasing their hunger to avert their looks for an
instant from the important business in which they were all engaged.
When Mabel, however, had got within a hundred feet of the fire,
she trod upon a dried stick, and the trifling noise produced by
her light footstep caused the Mohican, as Arrowhead had pronounced
the Indian to be, and his companion, whose character had been
thought so equivocal, to rise to their feet, as quick as thought.
Both glanced at the rifles that leaned against a tree; and then
each stood without stretching out an arm, as his eyes fell on the
form of the girl. The Indian uttered a few words to his companion,
and resumed his seat and his meal as calmly as if no interruption
had occurred. On the contrary, the white man left the fire, and
came forward to meet Mabel.

The latter saw, as the stranger approached that she was about to be
addressed by one of her own color, though his dress was so strange
a mixture of the habits of the two races, that it required a near
look to be certain of the fact. He was of middle age; but there
was an open honesty, a total absence of guile, in his face, which
otherwise would not have been thought handsome, that at once assured
Magnet she was in no danger. Still she paused.

"Fear nothing, young woman," said the hunter, for such his attire
would indicate him to be; "you have met Christian men in the wilderness,
and such as know how to treat all kindly who are disposed to peace
and justice. I am a man well known in all these parts, and perhaps
one of my names may have reached your ears. By the Frenchers and
the red-skins on the other side of the Big Lakes, I am called La
Longue Carabine; by the Mohicans, a just-minded and upright tribe,
what is left of them, Hawk Eye; while the troops and rangers along
this side of the water call me Pathfinder, inasmuch as I have never
been known to miss one end of the trail, when there was a Mingo,
or a friend who stood in need of me, at the other."

This was not uttered boastfully, but with the honest confidence
of one who well knew that by whatever name others might have heard
of him, who had no reason to blush at the reports. The effect on
Mabel was instantaneous. The moment she heard the last _sobriquet_
she clasped her hands eagerly and repeated the word "Pathfinder!"

"So they call me, young woman, and many a great lord has got a
title that he did not half so well merit; though, if truth be said,
I rather pride myself in finding my way where there is no path,
than in finding it where there is. But the regular troops are by
no means particular, and half the time they don't know the difference
between a trail and a path, though one is a matter for the eye,
while the other is little more than scent."

"Then you are the friend my father promised to send to meet us?"

"If you are Sergeant Dunham's daughter, the great Prophet of the
Delawares never uttered more truth."

"I am Mabel; and yonder, hid by the trees, are my uncle, whose name
is Cap, and a Tuscarora called Arrowhead. We did not hope to meet
you until we had nearly reached the shores of the lake."

"I wish a juster-minded Indian had been your guide," said Pathfinder;
"for I am no lover of the Tuscaroras, who have travelled too
far from the graves of their fathers always to remember the Great
Spirit; and Arrowhead is an ambitious chief. Is the Dew-of-June
with him?"

"His wife accompanies us, and a humble and mild creature she is."

"Ay, and true-hearted; which is more than any who know him will say
of Arrowhead. Well, we must take the fare that Providence bestows,
while we follow the trail of life. I suppose worse guides might
have been found than the Tuscarora; though he has too much Mingo
blood for one who consorts altogether with the Delawares."

"It is, then, perhaps, fortunate we have met," said Mabel.

"It is not misfortunate, at any rate; for I promised the Sergeant
I would see his child safe to the garrison, though I died for it.
We expected to meet you before you reached the Falls, where we have
left our own canoe; while we thought it might do no harm to come
up a few miles, in order to be of service if wanted. It is lucky
we did, for I doubt if Arrowhead be the man to shoot the current."

"Here come my uncle and the Tuscarora, and our parties can now join."
As Mabel concluded, Cap and Arrowhead, who saw that the conference
was amicable, drew nigh; and a few words sufficed to let them know
as much as the girl herself had learned from the strangers. As
soon as this was done, the party proceeded towards the two who
still remained near the fire.



CHAPTER II.

Yea! long as Nature's humblest child
Hath kept her temple undefiled
By simple sacrifice,
Earth's fairest scenes are all his own,
He is a monarch and his throne
Is built amid the skies!
WILSON.


The Mohican continued to eat, though the second white man rose,
and courteously took off his cap to Mabel Dunham. He was young,
healthful, and manly in appearance; and he wore a dress which,
while it was less rigidly professional than that of the uncle, also
denoted one accustomed to the water. In that age, real seamen
were a class entirely apart from the rest of mankind, their ideas,
ordinary language, and attire being as strongly indicative of
their calling as the opinions, speech, and dress of a Turk denote
a Mussulman. Although the Pathfinder was scarcely in the prime of
life, Mabel had met him with a steadiness that may have been the
consequence of having braced her nerves for the interview; but when
her eyes encountered those of the young man at the fire, they fell
before the gaze of admiration with which she saw, or fancied she
saw, he greeted her. Each, in truth, felt that interest in the
other which similarity of age, condition, mutual comeliness, and
their novel situation would be likely to inspire in the young and
ingenuous.

"Here," said Pathfinder, with an honest smile bestowed on Mabel,
"are the friends your worthy father has sent to meet you. This is
a great Delaware; and one who has had honors as well as troubles
in his day. He has an Indian name fit for a chief, but, as the
language is not always easy for the inexperienced to pronounce we
naturally turn it into English, and call him the Big Sarpent. You
are not to suppose, however, that by this name we wish to say that
he is treacherous, beyond what is lawful in a red-skin; but that he
is wise, and has the cunning which becomes a warrior. Arrowhead,
there, knows what I mean."

While the Pathfinder was delivering this address, the two Indians
gazed on each other steadily, and the Tuscarora advanced and spoke
to the other in an apparently friendly manner.

"I like to see this," continued Pathfinder; "the salutes of two
red-skins in the woods, Master Cap, are like the hailing of friendly
vessels on the ocean. But speaking of water, it reminds me of my
young friend, Jasper Western here, who can claim to know something
of these matters, seeing that he has passed his days on Ontario."

"I am glad to see you, friend," said Cap, giving the young fresh-water
sailor a cordial grip; "though you must have something still to
learn, considering the school to which you have been sent. This
is my niece Mabel; I call her Magnet, for a reason she never dreams
of, though you may possibly have education enough to guess at it,
having some pretentions to understand the compass, I suppose."

"The reason is easily comprehended," said the young man, involuntarily
fastening his keen dark eye, at the same time, on the suffused face
of the girl; "and I feel sure that the sailor who steers by your
Magnet will never make a bad landfall."

"Ha! you do make use of some of the terms, I find, and that with
propriety; though, on the whole, I fear you have seen more green
than blue water."

"It is not surprising that we should get some of the phrases which
belong to the land; for we are seldom out of sight of it twenty-four
hours at a time."

"More's the pity, boy, more's the pity! A very little land ought
to go a great way with a seafaring man. Now, if the truth were
known, Master Western, I suppose there is more or less land all
round your lake."

"And, uncle, is there not more or less land around the ocean?"
said Magnet quickly; for she dreaded a premature display of the
old seaman's peculiar dogmatism, not to say pedantry.

"No, child, there is more or less ocean all round the land;
that's what I tell the people ashore, youngster. They are living,
as it might be, in the midst of the sea, without knowing it; by
sufferance, as it were, the water being so much the more powerful
and the largest. But there is no end to conceit in this world:
for a fellow who never saw salt water often fancies he knows more
than one who has gone round the Horn. No, no, this earth is pretty
much an island; and all that can be truly said not to be so is
water."

Young Western had a profound deference for a mariner of the ocean,
on which he had often pined to sail; but he had also a natural
regard for the broad sheet on which he had passed his life, and
which was not without its beauties in his eyes.

"What you say, sir," he answered modestly, "may be true as to the
Atlantic; but we have a respect for the land up here on Ontario."

"That is because you are always land-locked," returned Cap, laughing
heartily; "but yonder is the Pathfinder, as they call him, with
some smoking platters, inviting us to share in his mess; and I will
confess that one gets no venison at sea. Master Western, civility
to girls, at your time of life, comes as easy as taking in the
slack of the ensign halyards; and if you will just keep an eye to
her kid and can, while I join the mess of the Pathfinder and our
Indian friends, I make no doubt she will remember it."

Master Cap uttered more than he was aware of at the time. Jasper
Western did attend to the wants of Mabel, and she long remembered
the kind, manly attention of the young sailor at this their first
interview. He placed the end of a log for a seat, obtained for
her a delicious morsel of the venison, gave her a draught of pure
water from the spring, and as he sat near her, fast won his way to
her esteem by his gentle but frank manner of manifesting his care;
homage that woman always wishes to receive, but which is never so
flattering or so agreeable as when it comes from the young to those
of their own age -- from the manly to the gentle. Like most of
those who pass their time excluded from the society of the softer
sex, young Western was earnest, sincere, and kind in his attentions,
which, though they wanted a conventional refinement, which, perhaps,
Mabel never missed, had those winning qualities that prove very
sufficient as substitutes. Leaving these two unsophisticated young
people to become acquainted through their feelings, rather than
their expressed thoughts, we will turn to the group in which the
uncle had already become a principal actor.

The party had taken their places around a platter of venison steaks,
which served for the common use, and the discourse naturally partook
of the characters of the different individuals which composed
it. The Indians were silent and industrious the appetite of the
aboriginal American for venison being seemingly inappeasable, while
the two white men were communicative, each of the latter being
garrulous and opinionated in his way. But, as the dialogue will
put the reader in possession of certain facts that may render the
succeeding narrative more clear, it will be well to record it.

"There must be satisfaction in this life of yours, no doubt, Mr.
Pathfinder," continued Cap, when the hunger of the travellers was
so far appeased that they began to pick and choose among the savory
morsels; "it has some of the chances and luck that we seamen like;
and if ours is all water, yours is all land."

"Nay, we have water too, in our journeyings and marches," returned
his white companion; "we bordermen handle the paddle and the spear
almost as much as the rifle and the hunting-knife."

"Ay; but do you handle the brace and the bow-line, the wheel and
the lead-line, the reef-point and the top-rope? The paddle is a
good thing, out of doubt, in a canoe; but of what use is it in the
ship?"

"Nay, I respect all men in their callings, and I can believe the
things you mention have their uses. One who has lived, like myself,
in company with many tribes, understands differences in usages.
The paint of a Mingo is not the paint of a Delaware; and he who
should expect to see a warrior in the dress of a squaw might be
disappointed. I am not yet very old, but I have lived in the woods,
and have some acquaintance with human natur'. I never believe much
in the learning of them that dwell in towns, for I never yet met
with one that had an eye for a rifle or a trail."

"That's my manner of reasoning, Master Pathfinder, to a yarn.
Walking about streets, going to church of Sundays, and hearing
sermons, never yet made a man of a human being. Send the boy out
upon the broad ocean, if you wish to open his eyes, and let him
look upon foreign nations, or what I call the face of nature, if
you wish him to understand his own character. Now, there is my
brother-in-law, the Sergeant: he is as good a fellow as ever broke
a biscuit, in his way; but what is he, after all? Why, nothing
but a soldier. A sergeant, to be sure, but that is a sort of a
soldier, you know. When he wished to marry poor Bridget, my sister,
I told the girl what he was, as in duty bound, and what she might
expect from such a husband; but you know how it is with girls when
their minds are jammed by an inclination. It is true, the Sergeant
has risen in his calling, and they say he is an important man at
the fort; but his poor wife has not lived to see it all, for she
has now been dead these fourteen years."

"A soldier's calling is honorable, provided he has fi't only on
the side of right," returned the Pathfinder; "and as the Frenchers
are always wrong, and his sacred Majesty and these colonies are
always right, I take it the Sergeant has a quiet conscience as well
as a good character. I have never slept more sweetly than when I
have fi't the Mingos, though it is the law with me to fight always
like a white man and never like an Indian. The Sarpent, here, has
his fashions, and I have mine; and yet have we fi't side by side
these many years; without either thinking a hard thought consarning
the other's ways. I tell him there is but one heaven and one hell,
notwithstanding his traditions, though there are many paths to
both."

"That is rational; and he is bound to believe you, though, I fancy,
most of the roads to the last are on dry land. The sea is what my
poor sister Bridget used to call a 'purifying place,' and one is
out of the way of temptation when out of sight of land. I doubt
if as much can be said in favor of your lakes up hereaway."

"That towns and settlements lead to sin, I will allow; but our lakes
are bordered by the forests, and one is every day called upon to
worship God in such a temple. That men are not always the same,
even in the wilderness, I must admit for the difference between
a Mingo and a Delaware is as plain to be seen as the difference
between the sun and the moon. I am glad, friend Cap, that we have
met, however, if it be only that you may tell the Big Sarpent here
that there are lakes in which the water is salt. We have been
pretty much of one mind since our acquaintance began, and if the
Mohican has only half the faith in me that I have in him, he believes
all that I have told him touching the white men's ways and natur's
laws; but it has always seemed to me that none of the red-skins
have given as free a belief as an honest man likes to the accounts
of the Big Salt Lakes, and to that of their being rivers that flow
up stream."

"This comes of getting things wrong end foremost," answered Cap,
with a condescending nod. "You have thought of your lakes and rifts
as the ship; and of the ocean and the tides as the boat. Neither
Arrowhead nor the Serpent need doubt what you have said concerning
both, though I confess myself to some difficulty in swallowing the
tale about there being inland seas at all, and still more that
there is any sea of fresh water. I have come this long journey as
much to satisfy my own eyes concerning these facts, as to oblige
the Sergeant and Magnet, though the first was my sister's husband,
and I love the last like a child."

"You are wrong, friend Cap, very wrong, to distrust the power of
God in any thing," returned Pathfinder earnestly. "They that live
in the settlements and the towns have confined and unjust opinions
consarning the might of His hand; but we, who pass our time in His
very presence, as it might be, see things differently -- I mean,
such of us as have white natur's. A red-skin has his notions, and
it is right that it should be so; and if they are not exactly the
same as a Christian white man's, there is no harm in it. Still,
there are matters which belong altogether to the ordering of God's
providence; and these salt and fresh-water lakes are some of them.
I do not pretend to account for these things, but I think it the
duty of all to believe in them."

"Hold on there, Master Pathfinder," interrupted Cap, not without
some heat; "in the way of a proper and manly faith, I will turn
my back on no one, when afloat. Although more accustomed to make
all snug aloft, and to show the proper canvas, than to pray when
the hurricane comes, I know that we are but helpless mortals at
times, and I hope I pay reverence where reverence is due. All I
mean to say is this: that, being accustomed to see water in large
bodies salt, I should like to taste it before I can believe it to
be fresh."

"God has given the salt lick to the deer; and He has given to man,
red-skin and white, the delicious spring at which to slake his
thirst. It is unreasonable to think that He may not have given
lakes of pure water to the west, and lakes of impure water to the
east."

Cap was awed, in spite of his overweening dogmatism, by the earnest
simplicity of the Pathfinder, though he did not relish the idea
of believing a fact which, for many years, he had pertinaciously
insisted could not be true. Unwilling to give up the point and,
at the same time, unable to maintain it against a reasoning to
which he was unaccustomed, and which possessed equally the force
of truth, faith, and probability, he was glad to get rid of the
subject by evasion.

"Well, well, friend Pathfinder," said he, "we will leave the
argument where it is; and we can try the water when we once reach
it. Only mark my words -- I do not say that it may not be fresh on
the surface; the Atlantic is sometimes fresh on the surface, near
the mouths of great rivers; but, rely on it, I shall show you a way
of tasting the water many fathoms deep, of which you never dreamed;
and then we shall know more about it."

The guide seemed content to let the matter rest, and the conversation
changed.

"We are not over-conceited consarning our gifts," observed the
Pathfinder, after a short pause, "and well know that such
as live in the towns, and near the sea -- "

"On the sea," interrupted Cap.

"On the sea, if you wish it, friend -- have opportunities which do
not befall us of the wilderness. Still, we know our own callings,
and they are what I consider natural callings, and are not parvarted
by vanity and wantonness. Now, my gifts are with the rifle, and
on a trail, and in the way of game and scouting; for, though I can
use the spear and the paddle, I pride not myself on either. The
youth Jasper, there, who is discoursing with the Sergeant's daughter,
is a different cratur'; for he may be said to breathe the water, as
it might be, like a fish. The Indians and Frenchers of the north
shore call him Eau-douce, on account of his gifts in this particular.
He is better at the oar, and the rope too, than in making fires on
a trail."

"There must be something about these gifts of which you speak, after
all," said Cap. "Now this fire, I will acknowledge, has overlaid
all my seamanship. Arrowhead, there, said the smoke came from a
pale-face's fire, and that is a piece of philosophy which I hold
to be equal to steering in a dark night by the edges of the sand."

"It's no great secret," returned Pathfinder, laughing with great
inward glee, though habitual caution prevented the emission of any
noise. "Nothing is easier to us who pass our time in the great
school of Providence than to larn its lessons. We should be as
useless on a trail, or in carrying tidings through the wilderness,
as so many woodchucks, did we not soon come to a knowledge of these
niceties. Eau-douce, as we call him, is so fond of the water, that
he gathered a damp stick or two for our fire; and wet will bring
dark smoke, as I suppose even you followers of the sea must know.
It's no great secret, though all is mystery to such as doesn't
study the Lord and His mighty ways with humility and thankfulness."

"That must be a keen eye of Arrowhead's to see so slight a difference."

"He would be but a poor Indian if he didn't. No, no; it is war-time,
and no red-skin is outlying without using his senses. Every skin
has its own natur', and every natur' has its own laws, as well as
its own skin. It was many years before I could master all these
higher branches of a forest education; for red-skin knowledge
doesn't come as easy to white-skin natur', as what I suppose is
intended to be white-skin knowledge; though I have but little of
the latter, having passed most of my time in the wilderness."

"You have been a ready scholar, Master Pathfinder, as is seen by
your understanding these things so well. I suppose it would be
no great matter for a man regularly brought up to the sea to catch
these trifles, if he could only bring his mind fairly to bear upon
them."

"I don't know that. The white man has his difficulties in getting
red-skin habits, quite as much as the Indian in getting white-skin
ways. As for the real natur', it is my opinion that neither can
actually get that of the other."

"And yet we sailors, who run about the world so much, say there is
but one nature, whether it be in the Chinaman or a Dutchman. For
my own part, I am much of that way of thinking too; for I have
generally found that all nations like gold and silver, and most
men relish tobacco."

"Then you seafaring men know little of the red-skins. Have you
ever known any of your Chinamen who could sing their death-songs,
with their flesh torn with splinters and cut with knives, the fire
raging around their naked bodies, and death staring them in the
face? Until you can find me a Chinaman, or a Christian man, that
can do all this, you cannot find a man with a red-skin natur', let
him look ever so valiant, or know how to read all the books that
were ever printed."

"It is the savages only that play each other such hellish tricks,"
said Master Cap, glancing his eyes about him uneasily at the
apparently endless arches of the forest. "No white man is ever
condemned to undergo these trials."

"Nay, therein you are again mistaken," returned the Pathfinder,
coolly selecting a delicate morsel of the venison as his _bonne
bouche_; "for though these torments belong only to the red-skin
natur', in the way of bearing them like braves, white-skin natur'
may be, and often has been, agonized by them."

"Happily," said Cap, with an effort to clear his throat, "none
of his Majesty's allies will be likely to attempt such damnable
cruelties on any of his Majesty's loyal subjects. I have not
served much in the royal navy, it is true; but I have served, and
that is something; and, in the way of privateering and worrying
the enemy in his ships and cargoes, I've done my full share. But
I trust there are no French savages on this side the lake, and I
think you said that Ontario is a broad sheet of water?"

"Nay, it is broad in our eyes," returned Pathfinder, not caring
to conceal the smile which lighted a face which had been burnt by
exposure to a bright red; "though I mistrust that some may think
it narrow; and narrow it is, if you wish it to keep off the foe.
Ontario has two ends, and the enemy that is afraid to cross it will
be certain to come round it."