 | CHAPTER XII. The pathfinder, or, The inland sea |  |
12. CHAPTER XII.
Is virtue; th' only lasting treasure, truth.”
Cowper.
The reader must imagine some of the occurrences,
that followed the sudden death of Muir. While his body
was in the hands of his soldiers, who laid it decently aside,
and covered it with a great-coat, Chingachgook silently resumed
his place at the fire, and both Sanglier and Pathfinder
remarked that he carried a fresh and bleeding scalp at his
girdle. No one asked any questions, and the former, although
perfectly satisfied that Arrowhead had fallen, manifested
neither curiosity nor feeling. He continued calmly
eating his soup, as if the meal had been tranquil as usual.
There was something of pride, and of an assumed indifference
to fate, imitated from the Indians, in all this; but there
was more that really resulted from practice, habitual self-command,
and constitutional hardihood. With Pathfinder,
same in appearance. He disliked Muir, whose smooth-tongued
courtesy was little in accordance with his own frank
and ingenuous nature; but he had been shocked at his unexpected
and violent death, though accustomed to similar scenes,
and he had been surprised at the exposure of his treachery.
With a view to ascertain the extent of the latter, as soon as
the body was removed, he began to question the captain on
the subject. The latter having no particular motive for secresy,
now that his agent was dead, in the course of the
breakfast revealed the following circumstances, which will
serve to clear up some of the minor incidents of our tale.
Soon after the 55th appeared on the frontiers, Muir had
volunteered his services to the enemy. In making his offers,
he boasted of his intimacy with Lundie, and of the means
it afforded of furnishing more accurate and important information
than usual. His terms had been accepted, and Monsieur
Sanglier had several interviews with him, in the vicinity
of the fort at Oswego, and had actually passed one entire
night secreted in the garrison. Arrowhead, however, was
the usual channel of communication, and the anonymous
letter to Major Duncan, had been originally written by Muir,
transmitted to Frontenac, copied, and sent back by the Tuscarora,
who was returning from that errand when captured by
the Scud. It is scarcely necessary to add, that Jasper was to be
sacrificed, in order to conceal the Quarter-Master's treason,
and that the position of the island had been betrayed to
the enemy by the latter. An extraordinary compensation,
that which was found in his purse, had induced him to accompany
the party under Serjeant Dunham, in order to give
the signals that were to bring on the attack. The disposition
of Muir towards the sex, was a natural weakness, and he
would have married Mabel, or any one else, who would accept
his hand; but his admiration of her was in a great degree
feigned, in order that he might have an excuse for accompanying
the party, without sharing in the responsibility of its
defeat, or incurring the risk of having no other strong and
seemingly sufficient motive. Much of this was known to
Captain Sanglier, particularly the part in connexion with
Mabel, and he did not fail to let his auditors into the whole
secret, frequently laughing in a sarcastic manner, as he revealed
“Touchez-la,” said the cold-blooded partisan, holding out
his sinewy hand to Pathfinder, when he ended his explanations—“you
be honnête, and dat is beaucoup. We tak' de
spy, as we tak' la médicine, for de good; mais, je les deteste!
Touchez-la.”
“I 'll shake your hand, captain, I will, for you 're a lawful
and nat'ral inimy,” returned Pathfinder, “and a manful
one; but the body of the Quarter-Master shall never disgrace
English ground. I did intend to carry it back to Lundie,
that he might play his bagpipes over it; but now it shall
lie here, on the spot where he acted his villany, and have
his own treason for a head-stone. Captain Flinty-Heart, I
suppose this consorting with traitors is a part of a soldier's
regular business; but, I tell you honestly, it is not to my
liking, and I 'd rather it should be you than I who had this
affair on his conscience. What an awful sinner!—To plot,
right and left, ag'in country, friends and the Lord!—Jasper,
boy, a word with you, aside, for a single minute.”
Pathfinder now led the young man apart, and squeezing
his hand, with the tears in his own eyes, he continued—
“You know me, Eau-douce, and I know you,” he said,
“and this news has not changed my opinion of you, in any
manner. I never believed their tales, though it looked solemn
at one minute, I will own; yes, it did look solemn; and it
made me feel solemn, too. I never suspected you for a
minute, for I know your gifts don't lie that-a-way; but, I
must own, I didn't suspect the Quarter-Master neither.”
“And he holding His Majesty's commission, Pathfinder!”
“It is n't so much that, Jasper Western; it is n't so much
that. He held a commission from God to act right, and to
deal fairly with his fellow-creatur's, and he has failed awfully
in his duty!”
“To think of his pretending love for one like Mabel, too,
when he felt none!”
“That was bad, sartainly; the fellow must have had
Mingo blood in his veins. The man that deals unfairly by a
woman can be but a mongrel, lad; for the Lord has made
them helpless on purpose that we may gain their love by
kindness and sarvices. Here is the sarjeant, poor man, on
Mabel, dear girl, she has consented to it; and it makes me
feel that I have two welfares to look after, two natur's to care
for, and two hearts to gladden. Ah's me! Jasper; I sometimes
feel that I 'm not good enough for that sweet child!”
Eau-douce had nearly gasped for breath when he first
heard this intelligence; and, though he succeeded in suppressing
any other outward signs of agitation, his cheek was
blanched nearly to the paleness of death. Still he found
means to answer, not only with firmness, but with energy—
“Say not so, Pathfinder; you are good enough for a
Queen.”
“Ay, ay, boy, according to your idees of my goodness;
that is to say—I can kill a deer, or even a Mingo at need,
with any man on the lines; or I can follow a forest path with
as true an eye, or read the stars, when others do not understand
them. No doubt, no doubt, Mabel will have venison
enough, and fish enough, and pigeons enough; but will she
have knowledge enough, and will she have idees enough,
and pleasant conversation enough, when life comes to drag a
little, and each of us begins to pass for our true value?”
“If you pass for your value, Pathfinder, the greatest lady
in the land would be happy with you. On that head, you
have no reason to feel afraid.”
“Now, Jasper, I dare to say you think so—nay, I know
you do; for it is nat'ral and according to friendship, for people
to look over-favourably at them they love. Yes, yes; if
I had to marry you, boy, I should give myself no consarn
about my being well looked upon, for you have always shown
a disposition to see me and all I do with friendly eyes. But
a young gal, after all, must wish to marry a man that is
nearer to her own age and fancies, than to have one old
enough to be her father, and rude enough to frighten her.
I wonder, Jasper, that Mabel never took a fancy to you, now,
rather than setting her mind on me!”
“Take a fancy to me, Pathfinder!” returned the young
man, endeavouring to clear his voice without betraying himself—“What
is there about me, to please such a girl as
Mabel Dunham? I have all that you find fault with in yourself,
with none of that excellence that makes even the generals
respect you.”
“Well—well—it 's all chance, say what we will about it.
Here have I journeyed and guided through the woods, female
after female, and consorted with them in the garrisons, and
never have I even felt an inclination for any, until I saw
Mabel Dunham. It 's true the poor sarjeant first set me to
thinking about his daughter, but after we got a little acquainted
like, I 'd no need of being spoken to, to think of her night
and day. I 'm tough, Jasper; yes, I 'm very tough; and
I 'm risolute enough, as you all know; and yet I do think it
would quite break me down, now, to lose Mabel Dunham!”
“We will talk no more of it, Pathfinder,” said Jasper,
returning his friend's squeeze of the hand, and moving back
towards the fire, though slowly and in the manner of one
who cared little where he went; “we will talk no more of
it. You are worthy of Mabel, and Mabel is worthy of you
—you like Mabel, and Mabel likes you—her father has
chosen you for her husband, and no one has a right to interfere.
As for the Quarter-Master, his feigning love for Mabel,
is worse even than his treason to the king!”
By this time, they were so near the fire, that it was necessary
to change the conversation. Luckily, at that instant,
Cap, who had been in the block in company with his dying
brother-in-law, and who knew nothing of what had passed
since the capitulation, now appeared, walking with a meditative
and melancholy air towards the group. Much of that
hearty dogmatism, that imparted even to his ordinary air and
demeanour an appearance of something like contempt for
all around him, had disappeared, and he seemed thoughtful,
if not meek.
“This death, gentlemen,” he said, when he had got sufficiently
near, “is a melancholy business, make the best of
it. Now, here is Serjeant Dunham, a very good soldier, I
make no question, about to slip his cable, and yet he holds
on to the better end of it, as if he was determined it should
never run out of the hawse-hole; and all because he loves his
daughter, it seems to me. For my part, when a friend is
really under the necessity of making a long journey, I always
wish him well and happily off.”
“You wouldn't kill the sarjeant before his time?” Pathfinder
reproachfully answered. “Life is sweet, even to the
aged, and, for that matter, I 've known some that seemed to
set much store by it, when it got to be of the least value.”
Nothing had been farther from Cap's real thoughts, than the
wish to hasten his brother-in-law's end. He had found himself
embarrassed with the duties of smoothing a death-bed,
and all he had meant was to express a sincere desire that the
serjeant were happily rid of doubt and suffering. A little
shocked, therefore, at the interpretation that had been put on
his words, he rejoined with some of the asperity of the man,
though rebuked by a consciousness of not having done his
own wishes justice—
“You are too old and too sensible a person, Pathfinder,”
he said, “to fetch a man up with a surge, when he is paying
out his ideas in distress, as it might be. Serjeant Dunham is
both my brother-in-law and my friend,—that is to say, as
intimate a friend as a soldier well can be with a seafaring
man, and I respect and honour him accordingly. I make no
doubt, moreover, that he has lived such a life as becomes a
man, and there can be no great harm, after all, in wishing
any one well berthed in heaven. Well! we are mortal the
best of us, that you 'll not deny; and it ought to be a lesson
not to feel pride in our strength and beauty. Where is the
Quarter-Master, Pathfinder?—It is proper he should come
and have a parting word with the poor serjeant, who is only
going a little before us.”
“You have spoken more truth, Master Cap, than you 've
been knowing to, all this time; in which there is no great
wonder, howsoever; mankind as often telling biting truths
when they least mean it, as at any other time. You might
have gone farther, notwithstanding, and said that we are
mortal, the worst of us, which is quite as true, and a good
deal more wholesome than saying that we are mortal, the
best of us. As for the Quarter-Master's coming to speak a
parting word to the sarjeant, it is quite out of the question,
seeing that he has gone ahead, and that too with little parting
notice to himself, or to any one else.”
“You are not quite as clear as common, in your language,
Pathfinder. I know that we ought all to have solemn thoughts
on these occasions, but I see no use in speaking in parables.”
“If my words are not plain, the idee is. In short, Master
Cap, while Sarjeant Dunham has been preparing himself for
a long journey, like a conscientious and honest man as he is,
a hurry, before him; and, although it is a matter on which
it does not become me to be very positive, I give it as my
opinion that they travel such different roads, that they will
never meet.”
“Explain yourself, my friend,” said the bewildered seaman,
looking around him in search of Muir, whose absence began
to excite his distrust. “I see nothing of the Quarter-Master,
but I think him too much of a man to run away, now that
the victory is gained. If the fight were ahead, instead of in
our wake, the case would be altered.”
“There lies all that is left of him, beneath that great-coat,”
returned the guide, who then briefly related the manner of
the Lieutenant's death. “The Tuscarora was as venomous
in his blow, as a rattler, though he failed to give the warning,”
continued Pathfinder. “I 've seen many a desperate
fight, and several of these sudden outbreaks of savage temper;
but never, before, did I see a human soul quit the body
more unexpectedly, or at a worse moment for the hopes of
the dying man. His breath was stopped with the lie on his
lips, and the spirit might be said to have passed away in the
very ardour of wickedness.”
Cap listened with a gaping mouth, and he gave two or
three violent hems, as the other concluded, like one who distrusted
his own respiration.
“This is an uncertain and uncomfortable life of yours,
master Pathfinder, what between the fresh-water and the
savages,” he said, “and the sooner I get quit of it, the higher
will be my opinion of myself. Now you mention it, I
will say that the man ran for that berth in the rocks, when
the enemy first bore down upon us, with a sort of instinct
that I thought surprising in an officer; but I was in too great
a hurry to follow, to log the whole matter accurately. God
bless me—God bless me! a traitor do you say, and ready to
sell his country, and to a bloody Frenchman too?”
“To sell any thing—country, soul, body, Mabel and all
our scalps; and no ways particular, I 'll engage, as to the
purchaser. The countrymen of Captain Flinty-heart, here,
were the paymasters this time.”
“Just like 'em; ever ready to buy, when they can't thrash,
and to run when they can do neither.”
Mons. Sanglier lifted his cap with ironical gravity, and
acknowledged the compliment with an expression of polite
contempt that was altogether lost on its insensible subject.
But Pathfinder had too much native courtesy, and was far
too just-minded, to allow the attack to go unnoticed.
“Well—well,” he interposed—“to my mind there is no
great difference atween an Englishman and a Frenchman,
after all. They talk different tongues, and live under different
kings, I will allow; but both are human, and feel like
human beings, when there is occasion for it. If a Frenchman
is sometimes skeary, so is an Englishman; and as for
running away, why a man will now and then do it, as well
as a horse, let him come of what people he may.”
Captain Flinty-heart, as Pathfinder called him, made
another obeisance; but this time the smile was friendly, and
not ironical, for he felt that the intention was good, whatever
might have been the mode of expressing it. Too philosophical,
however, to heed what a man like Cap might say, or
think, he finished his breakfast without allowing his attention
to be again diverted from that important pursuit.
“My business here was principally with the Quarter-Master,”
Cap continued, as soon as he had done regarding the
prisoner's pantomime. “The serjeant must be near his end;
and I have thought he might wish to say something to his
successor in authority, before he finally departed. It is too
late, it would seem; and, as you say, Pathfinder, the lieutenant
has truly gone before.”
“That he has, though on a different path. As for authority,
I suppose the corporal has now a right to command
what's left of the 55th, though a small and worried, not to
say frightened, party it is. But, if any thing needs to be
done, the chances are greatly in favour of my being called on
to do it. I suppose, however, we have only to bury our dead,
set fire to the block and the huts, for they stand in the inimy's
territory, by position, if not by law, and must not be left for
their convenience. Our using them again, is out of the question;
for now the Frenchers know where the island is to be
found, it would be like thrusting the hand into a wolf-trap,
with our eyes wide open. This part of the work, the Sarpent
and I will see to; for we are as practysed in retreats as
in advances.”
“All that is very well, my good friend; and now for my
poor brother-in-law: though he is a soldier, we cannot let
him slip without a word of consolation, and a leave-taking,
in my judgment. This has been an unlucky affair, on every
tack; though I suppose it is what one had a right to expect,
considering the state of the times, and the nature of the navigation.
We must make the best of it, and try to help the
worthy man to unmoor, without straining his messengers.
Death is a circumstance, after all, Master Pathfinder, and
one of a very general character, too, seeing that we must all
submit to it, sooner or later.”
“You say truth, you say truth; and for that reason I hold
it to be wise to be always ready. I 've often thought, Salt-water,
that he is happiest who has the least to leave behind
him when the summons comes. Now, here am I, a hunter
and a scout, and a guide, although I do not own a foot of
land on 'arth, yet do I enjoy and possess more than the great
Albany Patroon. With the heavens over my head to keep
me in mind of the last great hunt, and the dried leaves beneath
my feet, I tramp over the ground as freely as if I was
its lord and owner; and what more need heart desire? I do
not say that I love nothing that belongs to 'arth; for I do,
though not much, unless it might be Mabel Dunham, that I
can't carry with me. I have some pups at the higher fort,
that I valy considerable, though they are too noisy for warfare,
and so we are compelled to live separate for a while;
and then, I think, it would grieve me to part with Killdeer;
but I see no reason why we should not be buried in the same
grave, for we are, as near as can be, of the same length—
six feet, to a hair's breadth; but, bating these, and a pipe
that the Sarpent gave me, and a few tokens, received from
travellers, all of which might be put in a pouch, and laid under
my head, when the order comes to march, I shall be ready
at a minute's warning; and, let me tell you, Master Cap,
that's what I call a circumstance, too!”
“'Tis just so with me,” answered the sailor, as the two
walked towards the block, too much occupied with their respective
morality, to remember, at the moment, the melancholy
errand they were on—“that's just my way of feeling
and reasoning. How often have I felt, when near shipwreck,
the relief of not owning the craft! `If she goes,' I have said
and there's great comfort in that.' I 've discovered, in the
course of boxing about the world, from the Horn to Cape
North, not to speak of this run on a bit of fresh-water, that
if a man has a few dollars, and puts them in a chest, under
lock and key, he is pretty certain to fasten up his heart in
the same till; and so I carry pretty much all I own, in a
belt round my body, in order, as I say, to keep the vitals in
the right place. D—e, Pathfinder, if I think a man without
a heart, any better than a fish with a hole in his air-bag.”
“I don't know how that may be, Master Cap, but a man
without a conscience is but a poor creatur', take my word for
it, as any one will discover who has to do with a Mingo. I
trouble myself but little with dollars or half-joes, for these
are the favoryte coin in this part of the world; but I can
easily believe, by what I 've seen of mankind, that if a man
has a chest filled with either, he may be said to lock up his
heart in the same box. I once hunted for two summers, during
the last peace, and I collected so much peltry that I found
my right feelings giving way to a craving after property; and
if I have consarn in marrying Mabel, it is that I may get to
love such things too well, in order to make her comfortable.”
“You 're a philosopher, that 's clear, Pathfinder; and I
don't know but you 're a Christian!”
“I should be out of humour with the man that gainsayed
the last, Master Cap. I have not been christianized by the
Moravians, like so many of the Delawares, it is true; but I
hold to Christianity and white gifts. With me, it is as oncreditable
for a white man not to be a Christian, as it is for
a red-skin not to believe in his happy hunting-grounds; indeed,
after allowing for difference in traditions, and in some
variations about the manner in which the spirit will be occupied
after death, I hold that a good Delaware is a good Christian,
though he never saw a Moravian; and a good Christian
a good Delaware, so far as natur' is consarned. The Sarpent
and I talk these matters over often, for he has a hankerin'
after Christianity—”
“The d—l he has!” interrupted Cap. “And what does
he intend to do in a church, with all the scalps he takes?”
“Don't run away with a false idee, friend Cap; don't run
away with a false idee. These things are only skin-deep,
you, at mankind, and tell me why you see a red warrior
here, a black one there, and white armies in another place?
All this, and a great deal more of the same kind that I could
point out, has been ordered for some 'special purpose; and it
is not for us to fly in the face of facts, and deny their truth.
No—no—each colour has its gifts, and its laws, and its traditions;
and one is not to condemn another because he does
not exactly comprehend it.”
“You must have read a great deal, Pathfinder, to see
things as clear as this,” returned Cap, who was not a little
mystified by his companion's simple creed—“It 's all as plain
as day to me now, though I must say I never fell in with
these opinions before. What denomination do you belong
to, my friend?”
“Anan?”
“What sect do you hold out for?—What particular church
do you fetch up in?”
“Look about you and judge for yourself. I 'm in church
now; I eat in church, drink in church, sleep in church.
The 'arth is the temple of the Lord, and I wait on him
hourly, daily, without ceasing, I humbly hope. No—no—
I 'll not deny my blood and colour, but am Christian born,
and shall die in the same faith. The Moravians tried me
hard; and one of the king's chaplains has had his say, too,
though that's a class no ways strenuous on such matters;
and a missionary sent from Rome talked much with me, as
I guided him through the forest, during the last peace; but
I 've had one answer for them all—I 'm a Christian already,
and want to be neither Moravian, nor Churchman, nor Papist.
No—no—I 'll not deny my birth and blood.”
“I think a word from you might lighten the serjeant over
the shoals of death, Master Pathfinder. He has no one with
him but poor Mabel, and she, you know, besides being his
daughter, is but a girl and a child after all.”
“Mabel is feeble in body, friend Cap, but in matters of
this natur', I doubt if she may not be stronger than most
men. But Sarjeant Dunham is my friend, and he is your
brother-in-law; so, now the press of fighting and maintaining
our rights is over, it is fitting we should both go and witness
his departure. I 've stood by many a dying man, Master
to enlarge on his experience, stopping and holding his companion
by a button—“I 've stood by many a dying man's
side, and seen his last gasp, and heard his last breath; for
when the hurry and tumult of the battle is over, it is good to
bethink us of the misfortunate, and it is remarkable to witness
how differently human natur' feels at such solemn moments.
Some go their way as stupid and ignorant as if God
had never given them reason, and an accountable state;
while others quit us rejoicing, like men who leave heavy burthens
behind them. I think that the mind sees clearly at
such moments, my friend, and that past deeds stand thick
before the recollection.”
“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 dare say, 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 suppose all callings
have their weak spots. I dare say, your trade is not altogether
without blemish, honourable and useful as it seems to
be?”
“Many of the scouts and guides are desperate knaves;
and, like the Quarter-Master here, some of them take pay
of both sides. I hope I 'm not one of them, though all occupations
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 temptation, for
I thought the law would have been almost with me, although
it was in peace-times. But then I remembered that such laws
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 as 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
general in person, too!” Here Pathfinder stopped to laugh,
his triumph still glittering in his eyes, and glowing on his
sunburnt 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 a way that enabled
me to get possession of them without waking a miscreant
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 favourite,
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
“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 colour, 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 intrinsically, 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 wigwam, limping. Luckily,
as it turned out, the great Delaware had only halted to
jerk some venison, and was following on my trail; and when
he got up, he had five of the scoundrel's scalps hanging where
they ought to be; so, you see, nothing was lost by doing
right, either in the way of honour 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 common, 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 Serjeant Dunham.
| CHAPTER XII. The pathfinder, or, The inland sea | |