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The Last of the Mohicans: Indians
They had barely reached their island fortress when Magua's band appeared on their trail. The scout and his companions valiantly defended their cave against a horde of Indians, inflicting heavy losses until their ammunition gave out. Then Cora, seeing that resistance was useless, begged the scout and two Indians to slip down the river and attempt to secure reinforcements at Fort William Henry. But a short while after the scouts set off Magua and his warriors appeared and made captive the whites who remained in the cave. Magua divided his band, and set off with his captives, attended by a handful of braves. He offered to send Alice to her father if Cora would go with him to his wigwam. Alice indignantly refused, and Magua, enraged, prepared to torture his captives.
Just as a brave rushed at Alice, with tomahawk raised, a rifle cracked, and the Indian dropped. Hawkeye, followed by Uncas and Chingachgook, rushed upon the bewildered Indians; only Magua escaped the fury of their attack. The captives were freed, and in a short time the party entered Fort William Henry, despite the fact that Montcalm was attacking it.
Their stay in the fort was brief, however, for Munro, his forces heavily outnumbered by those of Montcalm, was forced to capitulate. Montcalm promised that the defenders of the fort should be permitted to depart for Fort Edward, and guaranteed that they should not be molested. Munro agreed, and the English abandoned the stronghold.
As the women and children were filing across the plain before the fort, an Indian reached out for a trinket on the breast of a woman who bore a child in her arms. Affrighted, the woman drew back, whereupon the Indian seized the child and dashed it to the ground, then buried his tomahawk in the head of the woman. In an instant the Indians of Montcalm's army fell upon the helpless women and children. Death was everywhere and in horrible forms. Suddenly Magua caught sight of Cora and Alice, who stood helpless by a pile of slain. He seized the terrified girls and hurried them off into the woods. Gamut, whom the Indians venerated as one insane, was permitted to accompany them.
A few days later Hawkeye and his Indian companions, with Heyward and Munro, stood on the bloody plain. They had searched carefully for the bodies of the girls, but without success. Hawkeye, certain that Magua had carried them off, searched diligently for the trail. Suddenly they found it, and the little party set off after the wily Magua.
The trail led to an Indian village, where they came upon Gamut, ludicrously attired as an Indian warrior. Heyward, disguised as a medicine-man, entered the camp with Gamut. He had been in the encampment but a short while when an old chief requested him to drive the evil spirit from the wife of one of his young men. As Heyward was preparing for the unwelcome task, an Indian was brought into the camp, and all thought of the woman vanished at the news that the prisoner was Uncas, deadly foe of the tribe.
Soon, as the excitement over the captive subsided, the old chief remembered the sick woman, and escorted Heyward to her chamber, in a cave of the neighboring mountain. As Heyward, alone in the chamber, save for the dying woman, looked around him, he was startled by a great, shaggy bear which padded noiselessly in. Suddenly its head slipped off and, Heyward, astounded, was gazing at Hawkeye, who, thus attired, had made his way into the Indian village.
As the scout rearranged his disguise, Heyward, hearing a slight noise in another chamber, investigated, and found Alice there. With Hawkeye's assistance he managed to bring the girl from the chamber and stole out of the village. Hawkeye, still in the character of a bear, fearlessly entered the cabin where Uncas was imprisoned, and succeeded in liberating him. Together they made their way into the forest.