As might have been expected, in growing younger Natty has grown theatrical; he appears too exactly at the critical moment to perform the deed of cool bravery expected of him. It could hardly be otherwise; _The Last of the Mohicans_ is a romance, and in romances such things must be. Chingachgook, that engaging savage, has for so many years met the romantic ideal of the American Indian that it is unlikely he will ever be disturbed in his place in the reader’s esteem. His rôle of white man’s friend was played in _The Prairie_ by Hard-Heart, the young Pawnee chief. _The Prairie_ has an originality all its own. This strange and sombre tale brings together an oddly assorted group of people, some of whom--the squatter and his family in particular--are drawn with rude strength. There are weak points in the plot. The carefully guarded tent with its hidden occupant is a poor device for compelling attention. Dr. Battius, endlessly talkative about genus and species, is a tiresome personage. The justification of the story as a work of art is to be sought in the descriptions of the ‘desert,’ in the impressions given of immeasurable distance and illimitable space, the abode of mystery and terror. The passages describing the stampede of a herd of buffalo, the night surprise of the trapper and his friends by the Sioux, the escape of Hard-Heart from the torture-stake, are all done with a masterly stroke. Natty Bumppo figures in _The Prairie_ as an old man of eighty-seven. His eye has lost its keenness of vision and his hand its steadiness. But the heart is undaunted (‘Lord, what a strange thing is fear!’) and the mind fertile in expedients. At times the trapper appears in almost superhuman proportions; he is mythical, like a hero of antiquity. The attachment between the ancient hunter and his dog is exquisitely described. In the beautiful account of Leather-Stocking’s last hour no touch is more poetic than that where the dying man discovers that the faithful Hector is dead. He will not say that a Christian can hope to meet his hound again; but he asks that Hector be buried beside him; no harm, he thinks, can come of that. Thirteen years after the publication of _The Prairie_ appeared _The Pathfinder_, and one year after that _The Deerslayer_. The series was now complete, forming ‘something like a drama in five acts.’ _The Pathfinder_ shows Natty in mature manhood, and (for the comfort of all who require this test of their heroes of fiction) a victim of unrequited love. Exposed to the wiles of the most treacherous of all Mingos, Cupid, the quondam hunter, hunted in turn, takes defeat like the man he is. In _The Deerslayer_ the chronicle is completed with a group of scenes from Natty’s youth. On the shores of Otsego Lake, while defending old Hutter’s aquatic home, the young man learns the first lessons in the art of war.