The wanderings or Leatherstocking in the forest and the
wilderness are substituted for those of Ulysses on the sea. This story
could not have been related with much of the vividness of an eye-witness of
the events, if it had been postponed beyond Cooper's day. Before that time
had forever passed, he fixed in living romance one remarkable phase of our
country's development. The persons of this romantic drama were the Pioneer
and the Indian; the stage was the trackless forest and the unbroken
wilderness.
[Illustration: COOPER AT THE AGE OF FORTY FIVE]
_The Last of the Mohicans_ has been the favorite of the greatest number of
readers. In this story Chingachgook, the Indian, and Uncas, his son, share
with Hawkeye our warmest admiration. The American boy longs to enter the
fray to aid Uncas. Cooper knew that the Indian had good traits, and he
embodied them in these two red men. Scott took the same liberty of
presenting the finer aspects of chivalry and neglecting its darker side.
Cooper, however, does show an Indian fiend in Magua.
Cooper's work in this series brings us face to face with the activities of
nature and man in God's great out of doors.
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