The present action is the climax of the novel. The opposing forces are brought into tragic confrontation, and the final pursuit is ended. Once again, at the beginning of the chapter, Cooper sets up the quiet calm of nature to contrast with the bloody events that follow. By and large, though, Cooper devotes his skill to the exciting action that resolves the plot conflicts.
Among the surviving participants, Gamut's character shows the most development. Hawkeye is still the knowing woodsman, the frontiersman adept at pursuit and battle, but Gamut is finally taking on some of the characteristics of the frontiersman himself. Granted that he is yet the religious singer, but at least for the time being he has traded his "tooting instrument" for a weapon, his singing for fighting. When he is allowed to continue with Hawkeye's forces, his reply is that "though not given to the desire to kill, had you sent me away my spirit would have been troubled." Henceforth he is no longer bringing up the rear, and he actually fights. When he flings the rock against the head of the Huron on the mountain, the description that he thus "exposed the indignant and glowing countenance of the honest Gamut" is significant. For good or for bad, the singing master has at last come to active terms with the frontier condition.
