At the beginning of this section, Cooper steps in as author to comment critically on the massacre and on Montcalm. His description of the natural scene is masterful, his presentation of the strewn battlefield quietly horrifying, the reactions of the five men individually typical of each. Hawkeye cannot feel that any human beings are justified in such wholesale slaughter, but according to his belief in "gifts," he does accept the open fighting of a few warriors and even extends his acceptance of natural gifts to the ravens marauding the area of the massacre. Like Hawkeye, Cooper obviously feels that there are degrees beyond which human actions should not rightly go. Though Munro and Heyward and once Uncas wish instant endeavor, in reacting to the hasty and fatal events of the evacuation, the woodsmen now properly deliberate with calm their next move before effecting it. Once again Cooper has effectively made use of contrast, this time with incident against incident, haste against deliberation.
There are also two kinds of contrast in regard to the Indians. On the individual level, the quietly laughing ease of the two Mohicans before they retire for sleep gives a new dimension to the father and son whom we have seen only as two upright and somewhat austere men during time of stress, and the scene invites a comparison with the one four days earlier between Munro and his daughters. On the more general level, both Hawkeye's discussion and Cooper's explanation about Indian tribes contrast the present and past conditions of tribal warfare. Formerly an Indian could immediately recognize an enemy because of the rather simple opposition of certain tribes to others. Now because of Indian alliances with the French or the English, previous enemies find themselves side by side against a common foe one day and then perhaps opposed to each other later. Some like the Delawares are even divided among themselves, and the disorder of alliances is compounded because, as Hawkeye says, "it is natur' to give a preference to one's own quarrels before those of strangers." The result has been an utter "confusion of nations," a major stage in the dissolution of the original natives of the frontier area.
Hawkeye's discussion of paradise, a natural interest after viewing so many dead, stresses again his belief in individualism. While others may want a final place of rest, he wants a heaven of action and finds comfort in the fact that "we serve a merciful Master, though we do it each after his fashion."
