by James Fenimore Cooper · 1840
On the shores of Lake Ontario during the French and Indian War, frontier scout Natty Bumppo escorts Sergeant Dunham's daughter Mabel through hostile wilderness to her father's remote fort, and finds himself falling for her even as a scheming quartermaster and a young ship's master vie for her hand. When treachery among the garrison exposes a spy in their midst, Pathfinder must choose between the woman he loves and the solitary life of the forest he can never leave.