Hawkeye is filled with merriment at Gamut, whose body is painted and his head shaved to leave a tuft of hair. The scout summons the others by cawing like a crow, and the singing master tells what has become of the girls. According to policy, Magua has separated his prisoners, keeping Alice with the Hurons and sending Cora to some Delawares in a neighboring valley. Gamut has been left to range freely because the Indians think he is, in Hawkeye's words, "a non-composser" (non compos mentis—not sound in mind) due to his singing. Hawkeye returns the "tooting whistle," which has been found on the trail, and knowing that Chingachgook himself is a great chief among the Delawares, comments that white men have done evil to bring the Mingoes and Delawares to travel the same path.
When the frontiersman suggests that Gamut go back to the Indians and let the girls know that help is near, Heyward firmly insists that he go also, acting a part. Using Indian paints, Chingachgook disguises him to look like a buffoon; with his knowledge of French, the major could pass as a juggler from Ticonderoga. Munro is to be hidden in charge of the elder Mohican, and Hawkeye and Uncas are to approach the Delawares.
Some two miles beyond the beaver pond, Heyward and Gamut reach a clearing with fifty or sixty rude lodges. In the twilight they see fantastic forms alternately rising from the grass. They are startled but discover that it is only Indian children at play. Then they head for what Gamut calls "the tents of the Philistines."
