There is something honest, strong and dependable about Hawk-eye, besides his bravery and skill, which makes us like and respect him greatly. But the most heroic and romantic figure in the book is young Uncas, who is the last of the Mohicans. This story of danger, attack, slaughter and peril, centering round Hawk-eye, Uncas, his father Chingachgook, and two beautiful English girls attempting to escape through the woods with a young English officer, Heyward, is almost the perfection of a story of adventure in its own class. As an example of how thrilling the story can be, read the account of the shooting contest in chapter twenty-nine. Several generations of boys and girls have already enjoyed _Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_. Perhaps no other writer has ever succeeded as well as Mark Twain in putting a real boy between the covers of a book in a story. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are not fanciful portraits. They are exactly such boys as anyone to-day can watch playing in a vacant lot, or down {81} by a river on a raft, or up in a hay-mow, or playing at being robbers in an old deserted shed or house, or reading books, or telling stories, or teasing but loving mothers and aunties, and learning about grown-up men and life in general. _Tom Sawyer_ is the first of Mark Twain's famous books about boys, and _Huckleberry Finn_ is a continuation of the same story. Tom lived with his Aunt Polly in the village of St. Petersburg on the Mississippi. He was the leading spirit among the boys of the place, largely because he had an active imagination and could devise many exciting games which often led to real adventures. Huckleberry Finn was a boy without a home; he had a father who was a source of danger rather than a loving protector. In _Huckleberry Finn_, there is the splendid story of Jim who was a slave and ran away with Huckleberry. As we read of their adventures, while they floated down the Mississippi on a raft, we learn to know and love Jim for his devotion, loyalty and child-like nature. Huck, too, plays as fine a part as many a hero who may appear more romantic than this runaway boy. But you must read _Huckleberry Finn_ yourself, and find out what happened. The great Mississippi river, mysterious, picturesque, flowing always past their village into the unknown south, exercised a powerful fascination on the minds of the boys. Many of their adventures had to do with the river, and some of the happenings were terrifying as well as exciting. But Tom and Huck actually did find hidden treasure and each boy's share was put in the bank, so that the boys had a small yearly income at the end of the {82} first story. These two books, when we read them, give us a curious, lasting feeling of real life and actual happenings, probably in part because Mark Twain, whose everyday name was Samuel Clemens, must have been writing about his own boyhood. When he was a boy, nothing would