Hawkeye, Uncas, and Chingachgook have returned just in time to save the hostages. The Iroquois had carelessly left their loaded rifles to the side of the clearing; when Hawkeye and his men entered the area, they knew they had the advantage.

However, in fairness to the Iroquois, the men decide to fight hand-to-hand with them. Hawkeye had killed only one of them to make the numbers of each side more even.

After untying the major and with Gamut's help, each man fights using hatchets and knives. In the end, only Magua remains alive, and Chingachgook is fighting him. 

It is difficult for Hawkeye and the other to distinguish Chingachgook from Magua as the two men are engaged in a tight battle. They are fighting in the middle of a dusty patch of ground, and the dirt clings tightly to both bodies because of the men's sweat and blood.

Finally one of the men ceases to move, and Chingachgook stands up to be recognized. Unfortunately, as Chingachgook lets out a cry of celebration, Magua quickly rises and jumps off the edge of the cliff to his freedom.

Chingachgook and Uncas are about to chase Magua so they can finish the battle, but Hawkeye calls them back. Magua is only one man without a gun or a knife, Hawkeye reminds them. He has no friends in the area and will pose no threat to them.

Hawkeye suggests that the men save their strength. They still have a long journey before they will reach the safety of the fort. So they travel to a fresh water spring that Hawkeye knows about, drink their fill of the clear water, then eat the remains of the deer the Iroquois recently killed.

While they rest, Hawkeye tells Heyward and the others what happened after Hawkeye and his two Indian friends left: They reached a point on the river where they realized it would take them too long to make it to the fort and back. There was a good chance that they would not return in time to save Heyward, Gamut, and the Munro sisters. So they decided to lie in hiding until they could decipher what the Iroquois planned to do with the hostages.

With Uncas's help (he was better at reading trail signs than Hawkeye was), they realized that the Iroquois had split into two groups. However, they could not tell in which group the hostages were until Uncas read the prints of the horses' hooves. Uncas noted that two of the horses, the ones that the sisters rode, walked with a special gait that left very specific hoof prints in the dirt.

Hawkeye looked for broken branches (as he had asked the women to make as trail markers) and was discouraged to find none. Then they came upon one bush that had one branch specifically broken in what Hawkeye determined was done by a woman's hand. The branch was broken in an upward fashion, in the same way that a woman might pick a flower. Hawkeye was then convinced that they were on the right trail.

After eating and resting, the group turns toward the north for their long journey to Fort William Henry.