man without a cross

[Mark A. Mandel]

I have started reading James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, in
the order of their plot rather than of their composition. (According to the
_Oxford Companion to American Literature_, this is as follows, with their
years of comp. or maybe it was publication:
     The Leatherstocking Tales:
          The Deerslayer (1841)
          The Last Of The Mohicans ('26)
          The Pathfinder ('40)
          The Pioneers ('23)
          The Prairie ('27)
I note it as curious, and mnemonically handy, that the plot order is the same as the alphabetical order of the titles.)

I have just started _The Last Of The Mohicans_ and am puzzled by the
repeated use of the expression "man without a cross", often used by the
hero Hawkeye (Natty Bumppo, aka Leatherstocking aka Deerslayer...)
sometimes in reference to himself. Maybe it means a frontiersman, one who
travels the Indian country but is not a missionary; but I have not been
able to puzzle it out clearly. Can someone enlighten this benighted soul?

-- Mark A. Mandel