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Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

"Oak Openings"

An Injin has curiosity as well as a white man,
though he manages so often to conceal it."
"Didn't you say, Blossom, that one of the canoes was much behind the
others, and that a warrior in that canoe DID look up toward this
grove, as if searching for the cabin?" asked Dorothy.
"Either it was so, or my fears made it SEEM so. The two canoes that
passed first were well filled with Injins, each having eight in it;
while the one that came last held but four warriors. They were a
mile apart, and the last canoe seemed to be trying to overtake the
others. I did think that nothing but their haste prevented the men
in the last canoe from landing; but my fears may have made that seem
so that was not so."
As the cheek of the charming girl flushed with excitement, and her
race became animated, Margery appeared marvellously handsome; more
so, the bee-hunter fancied, than any other female he had ever before
seen. But her words impressed him quite as much as her looks; for he
at once saw the importance of such an event, to persons in their
situation. The wind was rising on the lake, and it was ahead for the
canoes; should the savages feel the necessity of making a harbor,
they might return to the mouth of the Kalamazoo; a step that would
endanger all their lives, in the event of these Indians proving to
belong to those, whom there was now reason to believe were in
British pay.


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