The Pathfinder

The Pathfinder (1840), the fourth of the five Leatherstocking Tales, is set on Lake Ontario during the French and Indian Wars. Natty Bumppo and the Mohican chieftain Chingachgook are serving as scouts with the British forces at Ontario. A stirring account of Europeans, Indians, and colonials on the American frontier, the novel is also a critique of Jacksonian democracy and a meditation on the course of American civilization.