492 GERMANIC LITERATURE 



the Indian Leather Stocking in the garb and manners of a European 

 woodlander; he, however, preserves many typical details of his 

 original, even to his favorite position. Whereas the other characters 

 support themselves but seldom on their gun or lance, Leather 

 Stocking leans always and everywhere on his famed and feared 

 "long rifle," from which the Indians have given him the nickname, 

 "la longue carabine"; cool at the critical moment, at another 

 time thoughtful and dreaming, motionless as a statue; in this 

 position he gazes after the departing friend; in this position he stands 

 even at the deathbed of his friend. It might be called his identi- 

 fying mark. Often the situation is described at length: "He 

 leaned on his rifle, and his sinewy fingers squeezed the barrel, some- 

 times with such violence as if they would bury themselves in the 

 metal"; or, "they stood on the narrow shore, the Pathfinder leaning 

 on his rifle, the butt of which rested on the pebbly beach, while 

 both his hands grasped the barrel at the height of his shoulders." In 

 the critical scene of the Mountain Forest, the four principal characters 

 form a group quite in Cooper's style: "The old hunter stood lean- 

 ing forward on his rifle, like a statue, no fibre of him betraying what 

 might be in his mind. . . . After some seconds of silent emotion, 

 the group gently dissolved." The illustrators of the Mountain Forest 

 have preserved this scene. 



Gregory, like the ranger in the Prairie, is completely filled with 

 recollections of the past; he lives, as does the other, in the circle of 

 those whose grandfathers he has known. The hearty affection which 

 he has for his two proteges, as he had earlier for the baron's son 

 and for Ronald, whom he loves as a father, finds repeated parallels 

 in the life of Leather Stocking. The Pathfinder is attached with 

 a fatherly love to Mabel. " In this moment the whole honest, manly 

 affection of Pathfinder showed clearly in his features and his glance 

 at our heroine, equal to the love which the tenderest father feels for 

 his favorite child." When a very old man he goes to the Indians, to 

 seek a son in Hardheart, whom he loves without measure; when 

 Hardheart's life is threatened, his eye follows every movement of 

 the tomahawk with the concern of a real father. 



Stifter makes Gregory disappear into the darkness of the forest: 

 "An old man, like a phantom, was still seen once and again walking 

 through the wood, but no man can tell the time when lie still walked 

 there and the time when he walked there no more." Even so the Path- 

 finder disappears at the close of the novel that bears his name: "and 

 he was lost in the depths of the forest. Neither Jasper nor Mabel 

 ever l>eheld the Pathfinder again." As an unknown hunter, in strange 

 dress and unusual bearing, and with a new name, he emerges Inter in 

 a distant place before them, only to disappear again from their field 

 of view. 



