Hawkeye and the Mohicans’ escape down the river

Hawkeye and the Mohicans’ escape down the river is a tactical withdrawal that removes three formidable opponents from the Hurons’ grasp while Duncan Heyward remains behind with the other captives. The escape is known in this scene through Heyward’s account to Magua: Hawkeye floated downstream after the Hurons’ gunpowder was spent and their attention was diverted, and Chingachgook and Uncas went with the water as well. The report unsettles the Hurons’ expectations of victory and helps redirect the action away from the island.

The Escape and Its Report

When the Hurons demand the whereabouts of Hawkeye, Heyward tells Magua that he has escaped and is beyond their reach. He explains that Hawkeye made his way down the stream by swimming after the Hurons’ powder had been exhausted and their eyes were turned elsewhere. Magua doubts the account, questioning how a man could travel through the water and why Heyward himself did not escape.

Heyward answers that a Huron who fell at the falls could have testified to his own ability to swim, had he survived. He says he stayed because he would not abandon the women. When Magua asks whether Chingachgook and Uncas also escaped, Heyward reports that both went down with the water. His answers are deliberately limited: he uses uncertainty about Magua’s French names for the fugitives to delay the conversation, but ultimately confirms their escape.

The Hurons’ Reaction and Withdrawal

Magua accepts that the three men have escaped, though the Hurons’ response makes clear that they value the loss more seriously than he does. Once he communicates the news, the band reacts with anger and disappointment; some warriors hurry to the water’s edge, while the group’s attention turns to Magua for an explanation. Their immediate loss is not only of captives but of the opponents they had expected to control.

The Hurons had reached the upper end of Glenn’s Island by carrying their canoe through the woods around the cataract. They had selected a bare, rocky approach, using a dozen men to steady the canoe and two skilled warriors to guide it through the dangerous passage. After moving the prisoners into the canoe, they carry them downriver and land on the south bank, near the place where the party had crossed the previous evening.

The Captives’ Separation

On the south bank, the Hurons confer and bring out the horses. The band then divides: its principal chief takes most of the warriors across the river and disappears into the woods, while six men remain with the prisoners under Magua’s leadership. Heyward had hoped that his captors meant to deliver him to Montcalm; after the division, he sees no basis for that expectation and understands that he and his companions remain in Huron custody.

The escape therefore has an uneven outcome. Hawkeye and the two Mohicans are beyond the Hurons’ immediate reach, but Heyward, Cora Munro, Alice Munro, and David Gamut are still prisoners. Heyward’s account makes the escape consequential without turning it into a rescue of the whole party: it removes the most formidable men from the captors’ control while leaving those they had stayed to protect in danger.