The twisted strands of a wild grapevine, severed by his knife, hung dangling below his eyrie, betraying his mode of ascent.

He had gone up hand over hand, aided by his powerful shoulder muscles and by his feet, which must have stuck like the feet of flies to the perpendicular wall of rock.
To follow him, even with the aid of the vine he had severed, had been hopeless in the face of his rifle fire.

A thousand men could not have taken him that way, while his powder and lead held out, for they would have been obliged to ascend one by one in slow and painful file, and he had but to shove his gun-muzzle in their faces as they appeared.
The war-yelps of the Oneidas had subtly changed their timbre so that ever amid the shrill yelling I marked the guttural snarls of baffled rage.

The Mohican lay on his belly behind a tree, silent, but his eyes were like coals in their red intensity.
Presently the Oneidas, lying prone at our side, ceased their tumult and became silent.

And for a long while we lay waiting for a shot.
All this time the Erie had given no sign of life, and I had begun to hope that he had been hit and would ultimately perish there, as wild things perish in solitude and silence.
Then the Mohican said in my ear: "Unless we can stir him to move and expose himself, we must lose him.
For his fellows will surely track us to this place." "Good God! By what unfortunate accident should such a hiding place exist so near!" I said miserably.
The Sagamore's stern visage slightly relaxed.
"It is no accident, Loskiel.