of Columbus, and "with special knowledge of a seaman, the accuracy of an historian, and with something of the fervor of a poet."
Gleaning Miss Cooper's "Pages and Pictures," one reads, as to "The Deerslayer": "One pleasant summer evening the author of 'The Pathfinder,' driving along the shady lake shore, was, as usual, singing; not, however, a burst of Burns's 'Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled!' or Moore's 'Love's Young Dream,'—his favorites,—but this time a political song of the party opposing his own. Suddenly he paused as a woods' opening revealed to his spirited gray eye an inspiring view of Otsego's poetical waters." When the spell was broken he turned to his beloved daughter and exclaimed: "I must write one more book, dearie, about our little lake!" Another far-seeing look was taken, to people this beautiful scene with the creatures of his fancy, followed by a moment of silence, then cracking his whip, he resumed his song with some careless chat, and drove home. A few days later the first pages of the new book were written. When the touch of Time was frosting his own head, he leads Natty, as a youth, over the first warpath of his hero. And so the "Glimmerglass"
and its "Mt. Vision" country grew into the story of "The Deerslayer"; it is "the very soul of the little lake overflowing with youthful freshness and vivid with stirring adventure."
On the bosom of its waters is anchored "Muskrat Castle," and over it, to and fro, move the "Ark of Floating Tom" and the Indian canoes, which gave a strange, wild interest to the story. Afloat and ashore come those unlike sisters,—proud Judith, handsome but designing, and simple-hearted Hetty, gentle, innocent, and artless; both so real and feminine, and yet so far removed from their supposed father, the buccaneer. Then comes this Uncas of the eagle air, swooping with lithe movement to his rocky trysting-place. And Uncas is in strong contrast with "The Pathfinder's" "Arrowhead," who was a wonder-sketch of the red-man's treachery