The song Uncas sings is unchanged from what Cooper wrote.

I am going back over each chapter and giving it a name other than 'chapter #' I hope that doesn't make it too confusing, I am just trying to prepare for when I will have to rearrange everything when I start adding chapters into the middle.

I did not stir till my eyes could no longer make out the colors of Cora's dress from the dense foliage. Then I descended from the dais in barely restrained anger, and moving silently through the throng, I reentered lodge in which I had been held captive. Slowly I unclenched my fist. In the dim light the white stone flowed and I let myself admire it for a moment before slipping it into the pouch at my waist.

I withdrew a dark, dry pigment from the leather bag and with steady fingers I began grinding and mixing a dye. Black as a wet stone, darker even than a soldier's polished boots the liquid was. I felt the presence of men behind me but I did not acknowledge their existence.

With delicacy I applied the paint to the left half of my face. I close one eyelid as I brushed the cool ink onto my skin. When I had finished I turned to the assembled group which had been patiently waiting my notice. For the first time in my life there were warriors looking to me to lead them to war, warriors who were my elders treating me with a deference that was best suited to one twice my age; this is what my father had prepared me for—I was a Mohican sagamore.

"Are we children who hide like cowards? Are we squaws to let the Wyandots belittle us without striking back?!"

A resounding, "No!" Rocked the wooden structure and fierce war whoops rent the tense air.

"Now we will prove to the Mingos what blood runs in our veins. Their totem is a moose yet they are outrun by the snails, we are the tribe of the Turtle, we out strip the deer!" The man who had spoken was near my father's age and grey tinted his black scalping tuft. A murmur of agreement ran through the men but they turned to me for guidance.

I accepted the role and turned to a warrior of perhaps twenty years and gave him my orders. During his absence the silence in the lodge was unbroken, but the tension was palpable enough to be cut by a knife. When he returned I sent out a second. While he was absent I drew my long-knife and began to sharpen it against a rock.

As the warrior I had sent returned, I nodded to a third who began mixing a blood-red paint. With a last scrape of my blade I sheathed it in my belt. All around me similar activities were being preformed by those around me.

I stood. I exited the lodge. I walked in the sunlight. I heard and saw the tribe standing around me, but I did not react, I did not comprehend. I was numb to the joy I usually felt when the autumn sun warmed my bare shoulders. Even the songs of the birds did not arouse me from the trance I was in.

I approached the post, and immediately began to circle it with a measured step, raising my voice, at the same time, in the wild and irregular chant of my war-song. The song was sometimes melancholy and plaintive—and then, with sudden and startling transitions, deep and compelling, composed to rouse the fighting spirit of all who heard. At first my mouth formed no words, and instead intoned the throbbing melody. Then slowly the words poured forth:

"Manitou! Manitou! Manitou!

Thou art great, thou art good, thou art wise:

Manitou! Manitou!

Thou art just." I dropped my voice to a solemn note which conveyed my veneration as I shook with emotion.

"In the heavens, in the clouds, O, I see

Many spots—many dark, many red:

In the heavens, O, I see

Many clouds." Again I paused my chant and raised my voice in a sound not unlike that of a wildcat's scream as I continued my weaving way around the post in a great circle.

"In the woods, in the air, O, I hear

The whoop, the long yell, and the cry:

In the woods, O, I hear

The loud whoop!" At the word "whoop," I let loose a savage war whoop, pausing entirely in my progress around the red striped tree. I would bring Cora back. I would return her to her father though it broke my heart. I would do what was right and honorable. I would kill Magua!

"Manitou! Manitou! Manitou!

Thou art weak—thou art strong; I am slow:

Manitou! Manitou!

Give me aid." I dropped my voice imploringly as I returned to the place from where I had started. I did not have the strength of mind or body to free her, but the Great Spirit did.

At the close of the first turn, a Delaware warrior joined me in the dance, and before I had got through the third verse a second time, many warriors were numbered in the dance's mazes. Thirty different songs rose up into the clear blue sky. On the third time around nearly forty men were stomping and twisting, wailing and shouting. Then, suddenly, with a wild cry which embodied all my rage, love, and heartbreak I struck my tomahawk deep into the post. The act announced to all that I had taken command of the expedition.

At that signal a hundred youths, who had hitherto been restrained by the diffidence of their years, rushed in a body on the painted emblem of their enemy, and tore it asunder, splinter by splinter, piece by piece, until nothing remained of the trunk but its roots in the earth.

As I had struck the blow, I moved out of the circle, and glanced up to the sun, which was just gaining its apex. I shut my eyes for a brief moment, then I opened them and pointed to the sky and crying as I did so, "The truce is ended!"

At those words the young men abandoned the chips of green wood and began preparing themselves and their families for the coming battle.

Some, those who had entered the lodge with me, were already armed and painted. These became as still as stone and remained that way til the order to move out was given. The women poured out of the lodges, with the songs of joy and those of lamentation, so strangely mingled, but their songs did not reach my ears and I did not appreciate the sweet voices, for none belonged to Cora.

I stood in the midst of the village watching all but not truly seeing. The women and the children, the precious stores and the food, the aged and the crippled, all disappeared into the forest which spread like an emerald carpet up the side of the mountain. Thither Tamenund also was taken. But my mind was elsewhere, running after a fleeing Huron who was always just out of my reach.