 1 The pleasure in the pathless woods. There is a rapture on the lonely shore. Their society were none intrudes by the deep sea and music in its roar. I love not man the less, but nature more. For these are interviews in which I steal. From all I may be, or have been before, to mingle with the universe and feel, what I can never express yet cannot all conceal. CHILD HEROED On the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus he who has traveled far and has seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived long, and the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity. In no other way can we account for the venerable air that is already gathering around American annals. When the mind reverts to the earliest days of colonial history, the period seems remote and obscure. The thousand changes that thicken along the links of recollections, throwing back the origin of the nation to a day so disson as seemingly to reach the mists of time, and yet four lives of ordinary duration would suffice to transmit, from mouth to mouth in the form of tradition, all that civilized man has achieved within the limits of the Republic. Although New York alone possesses a population materially exceeding that of either the four smallest kingdoms of Europe or materially exceeding that of the entire Swiss confederation, it is little more than two centuries since the Dutch commenced their settlement, rescuing the region from the savage state. Thus what seems venerable by accumulation of changes is reduced to familiarity when we come seriously to consider it solely in connection with time. This glance into the perspective of the past will prepare the reader to look at the pictures we are about to sketch with less surprise than he might otherwise feel, and a few additional explanations may carry him back an imagination to the precise condition of society that we desire to delineate. It is a matter of history that the settlements on the eastern shores of the Hudson, such as the Claverac, Kinderhoek, and even Prokepsi, were not regarded as safe from Indian incursions a century since, and there is still standing on the banks of the same river and within musket shot of the wars of Albany, a residence of a younger branch of the Van Rensselers that has loopholes constructed for defense against the same crafty enemy. Although it dates from a period scarcely so distant, other similar memorials of the infancy of the country are to be found scattered through what is now deemed the very center of American civilization, affording the plainest proofs that all we possess of security from invasion and hostile violence is the growth of but little more than the time that is frequently fulfilled by a single human life. The incidents of this tale occurred between the years 1740 and 1745, when the settled portions of the colony of New York were confined to the four Atlantic counties, a narrow belt of country on each side of the Hudson extending from its mouth to the falls near its head, and to a few advanced neighborhoods on the Mohawk and the Skahari. Broad belts of the virgin wilderness not only reached the shores of the First River but they even crossed it, stretching away into New England and affording forced covers to the noiseless moccasin of the native warrior as he trod the secret and bloody warpath. A bird's-eye view of the whole region east of the Mississippi must then have offered one vast expanse of woods, relieved by a comparatively narrow fringe of cultivation along the sea, dotted by the glittering surfaces of lakes and intersected by the waving lines of river. In such a vast picture of solemn solitude, the district of country we designed to paint sinks into insignificance, though we feel encouraged to proceed by the conviction that, with slight and immaterial distinctions, he who succeeds in giving an accurate idea of any portion of this wild region must necessarily convey a tolerably correct notion of the whole. Whatever may be the changes produced by man, the eternal round of the seasons is unbroken. Summer and winter, sea-time and harvest, return in their stated order with sublime precision, affording to man one of the noblest of all the occasions he enjoys of proving the high powers of his far-reaching mind, encompassing the laws that control their exact uniformity, and in calculating their never-ending revolutions. Centuries of summer suns had warmed the tops of the same noble oaks and pines, sending their heats even to the tenacious roots. When voices were heard calling to each other in the depths of a forest of which the leafy surface lay bathed in the brilliant light of a cloudless day in June, while the trunks of the trees rose in a gloomy grandeur in the shades beneath. The calls were in different tones, evidently proceeding from two men who had lost their way and were searching in different directions for their path. At length the shout proclaimed success, and presently a man of gigantic mold broke out of the tangled labyrinth of a small swamp, emerging into an opening that appeared to have been formed partly by the ravages of the wind and partly by those of fire. This little area which afforded a good view of the sky, although it was pretty well filled with dead trees, lay on the side of one of the high hills or low mountains into which nearly the whole surface of the adjacent country was broken. Here is room to breathe in, exclaimed the liberated forester. As soon as he found himself under a clear sky, shaking his huge frame like a massive that has just escaped from a snow bank. Hurrah, dear Slayer, here is daylight at last, and yonder is the lake. These words were scarcely uttered when the second forester dashed aside the bushes of the swamp and appeared in the area. After making a hurried adjustment of his arms in disordered dress, he joined his companion who had already begun his disposition for a halt. Do you know this spot? Demanded the one called dear Slayer, or do you shout at the side of the sun? Both lad, both. I know this spot, and I'm not sorry to see so useful a friend as the sun. Now we have got the points of the compass in our minds once more, and it will be our own fault if we let anything turn them topsy-turvy again, as just happened. My name is not hurry, Harry, if this be not the very spot where the land hunters camped the last summer and passed a week. See, a yonder are the dead bushes of their bower, and here is the spring. Much as I like the sun, boy, I have no occasion for it to tell me at its noon. The stomach of mine is as good a timepiece as to be found in the colony, and it already points to half past twelve. So open the wallet, and let us wind up for another six hours run. At this suggestion, both set themselves about making the preparations necessary for their usual frugal but hearty meal. We will profit by this pause in the discourse to give the reader some idea of the appearance of the men, each of whom is destined to enact no insignificant part in our legend. It would not have been easy to find a more noble specimen of a vigorous manhood than was offered in the person of him who called himself Harry Harry. His real name was Henry Marge, but the frontier has been having caught the practice of giving sober case from the Indians. The appellation of Harry was far offener applied to him than his proper designation, and not unfrequently he was termed Harry Scurry, a nickname he had obtained from a dashing, reckless, offhand manner and a physical restlessness that kept him so constantly on the move as to cause him to be known along the whole line of scattered habitations that lay between the province and the Canada's. The stature of Harry Harry exceeded six feet four, and being unusually well proportioned, his strength fully realized the idea created by his gigantic frame. The face did no discredit to the rest of the man, for it was both good-humored and handsome. His air was free, and though his manners necessarily partook of the rudeness of a border life, the grandeur that pervaded so noble a physique prevented it from becoming altogether vulgar. Dear Slayer, as Harry called his companion, was a very different person in appearance as well as in character. In stature he stood about six feet in his moccasins, but his frame was comparatively light and slender, showing muscles, however, that promised unusual agility, if not unusual strength. His face would have had little to recommend it, except youth, were it not for an expression that seldom failed to win upon those who had leisure to examine it, and to yield to the feeling of confidence it created. This expression was simply that of guileless truth, sustained by an earnestness of purpose, and the sincerity of feeling that rendered it remarkable. At times this air of integrity seemed to be so simple as to awaken the suspicion of a want of the usual means to discriminate between artifice and truth, but few came in serious contact with the man without losing his distrust and respect for his opinions and motives. Both these frontiersmen were still young, Harry having reached the age of six or eight and twenty, while Dear Slayer was several years his junior. Their attire needs no particular description, though it may be well to add that it was composed in no small degree of dressed dearskins, and had the usual signs of belonging to those who passed their time between the skirts of civilized society and the boundless forest. There was notwithstanding some attention to the smartness and picturesque in the arrangements of Dear Slayer's dress, more particularly in the part connected with his arms and accoutrements. His rifle was in perfect condition. The handle of his hunting-knife was neatly carved. His powder horn was ornamented with suitable devices, lightly cut into the material, and the shot pouch was decorated with wampum. On the other hand, Harry Harry, either from constitutional recklessness, or from a secret consciousness, how little his appearance required artificial aids, or everything in a careless, slovenly manner, as if he felt a noble scorn for the trifling accessories of dress and ornaments. Perhaps a peculiar effect on his fine form and great stature was increased rather than lessened by this unstudied and disdainful air of indifference. Come, Dear Slayer, fall to and prove that you have a Delaware stomach as you say you have had a Delaware education, cried Harry, setting the example by opening his mouth to receive a slice of cold venison steak that would have made an entire meal for a European peasant. Fall to, lad, and prove your manhood on this poor devil of a doe with your teeth, as you have already done with your rifle. Nay, nay, hurry, there's little manhood in killing a doe, and that too out of season, though there might be some in bringing down a painter or a cat-mount, return the other, disposing himself to comply. The Delaware's had given me my name, not so much on account of a bold heart as on account of a quick eye and an active foot. There may not have been a cowardice in overcoming a deer, but certain there is no great valor. The Delaware's themselves are no heroes, muttered hurried through his teeth, the mouth being too full to permit it to be fairly open, or they never would have allowed them loping vagabonds the mangoes to make them women. That matter is not rightly understood, has never been rightly explained, said the Deer Slayer earnestly, for he was as zealous a friend as his companion was dangerous as an enemy. The manly fill the woods with their lies and misconstruct words and treaties. I've now lived 10 years with the Delaware's, and I know them to be as manful as any other nation, when the proper time to strike comes. Harkey, Master Deer Slayer, since we are on the subject, we may as well open our minds to each other in a man to man way. Answer me one question. You have had so much luck among the game as to have gotten the title, it would seem. But did you ever hit anything human or intelligible? Do you ever pull the trigger on an enemy that was capable of pulling one upon you? This question produced a singular collision between mortification and correct feeling in the bosom of the youth that was easily to be traced in the workings of his ingenuous countenance. The struggle was short, however, uprightness of heart soon getting the better of false pride and frontier boastfulness. To own the truth, I never did, answer Deer Slayer. Seeing that a fitting occasion never offered, the Delaware's have been peaceful since my sojourn with them, and I hold it to be unlawful to take the life of a man except in open and generous warfare. What did you never find a fellow thieving among your traps and skins and do the law on him with your own hands by way of saving the magistrates trouble in the settlements and the rogue himself the cost of the suit. I'm no trap or hurry return the young man proudly. I live by the rifle, a weapon at which I will not turn my back on any man of my years between the Hudson and the St Lawrence. I never offer a skin that has not a hole in its head besides them which nature made to see with or to breathe through. I this is all very well in the animal way, though it makes but a poor figure alongside of scalps and ambushes. Shooting an Indian from an ambush is acting up to his own principles. And now we have what you call lawful war on our hands. The sooner you wipe that disgrace off your character, the sounder will be your sleep. If it only come from knowing that there is one enemy the less prowling in the woods. I shall not frequent your society long, friend Natty, unless you look higher than four footed beasts to practice your rifle on. Our journey is nearly ended, you say, Master March, and we can part tonight if you see occasion. I have a friend waiting for me who will think it no disgrace to consort with the fellow creature that has never yet slain his kind. I wish I knew what has brought that skulking Delaware into this part of the country so early in the season. Muddered hurry to himself in a way to show equally distressed and recklessness of its betrayal. Where did you say the young chief was to give you the meeting? At a small round rock near the foot of the lake, where they tell me the tribes are given to resorting to making their treaties and to bury their hatchets. This rock I have often heard the Delaware's mention, though Lake and Rock are equally strangers to me. The country is claimed by both mingos and mohicans and this sort of common territory to fish and hunt through. In time of peace, though, what it may become in wartime, the Lord not only knows. Common territory, exclaimed hurry, laughing aloud. I should like to know what floating Tom Hutter would say to that. He claims a lake as his own property, in varchia of 15 years possession, and will not likely to give it up to either mingo or Delaware without a battle for it. And what will the colonies say to such a quarrel? All this country must have some owner, the gentry pushing their cravings into the wilderness, even where they never dare to venture in their own persons to look at the land they own. That may do in other quarters of the colony dear slayer, but it will not do here. Not a human being, but the Lord accepted, owns a foot of style in this part of the country. Penn was never put to paper concerning either hill or valley here away. As I've heard old Tom say time and again, and so he claims the best right to it, of any man breathing, and what Tom claims he'll be very likely to maintain. By what I've heard you say, hurry, this floating Tom must be an uncommon mortal, neither mingo, Delaware nor pale face. His possession too has been long by your tail, and altogether beyond frontier endurance. What's the man's history and nature? Why, as to old Tom's nature, it's not much like other men's human nature, but more like a muskrat's human nature, seeing that he takes more to the ways of that animal than to the ways of any other fellow creature. Some think he was a free liver on the salt water in his youth and a companion of a certain kid, who was hanged for piracy long for you and I were born or acquainted, and that he came up into these regions thinking that the king's cruisers could never cross the mountains, and that he might enjoy the plunder peaceably in the woods. Then he was wrong, hurry, very wrong. A man can enjoy plunder peaceably nowhere. That's much as his turn of mind may happen to be. I've known them that never could enjoy it at all, unless it was in the midst of a jollification, and them again that enjoyed it best in a corner. Some men have no peace if they don't find plunder, and some if they do. Human nature is crooked in these matters. Old Tom seems to belong to neither set as he enjoys his. If plunder he has really got with his daughters in a very quiet and comfortable way, and wishes for no more. I, he has daughters too. I've heard the Delaware's who've hunted this away, tell their histories of these young women. Is there no mother, hurry? There was once, as in reason, but she has now been dead and sunk these two good years. And then said, dear Slayer, looking up at his companion in a little surprise. Dead and sunk, I say, and I hope that's good English. The old fellow lowered his wife into the lake by way of seeing the last of her, as I can testify being an eyewitness of the ceremony. But whether Tom did it to save digging, which is no easy job among roots, or out of a consite that the water washes away sin sooner than earth is more than I can say. Was the poor woman uncommon wicked that her husband should take so much pain with her body? Not unreasonable, though she had her faults. I consider Judith Hutter to have been as graceful and about as likely to make a good end as any woman who has lived so long beyond the sound of church bells. That can conclude old Tom sunk her as much by way of saving pains as by way of taking it. There was little steel in her temper. It's true. And as old Hutter is pretty much flint, they struck out sparks once in a while. But on the whole, they might be said to live amicable like. When they did kindle, the listeners got so much insights into their past lives, as one gets in the darker parts of the woods, when a stray gleam of sunshine finds its way down to the roots of the trees. But Judith, I shall always esteem, as it is recommended enough to one woman to be the mother of such a creature as her daughter, Judith Hutter. Judith was the name the Delaware's mentioned. Though it was pronounced after a fashion of their own, from their discourse I do not think the girl would much please my fancy. Thy fancy, exclaimed March, taking fire equally at the indifference and at the presumption of his companion, what the devil have you to do with a fancy, and that to concerning one like Judith. You are but a boy, a sapling, that as scars got root. Judith has had men among her suitors ever since she was 15, which is now near five years, and will not be apt even to cast a look upon a half grown creature like you. It is June, and there is not a cloud between us and the sun, hurry, so all this heat is not wanted, answered the other, altogether undisturbed. Anyone may have a fancy, and a squirrel has the right to make up his mind touching a catamount. Aye, but it might not be wise always to let the catamount know it, growed March. But you're young and thoughtless and all overlook your ignorance. Come dear Slayer, he added, with a good natured laugh after pausing a moment to reflect. Come dear Slayer, we're sworn friends and will not quarrel about light-minded, jilting Jade, just because she happens to be handsome, more especially as you have never seen her. Judith is only for a man whose teeth show the full marks, and it is foolish to be a fear of a boy. What did the Delaware say of the Hussie, for an Indian, after all, has his notions of woman kind, as well as a white man? They said she was fair to look on, and pleasant of speech, but overgiven to admirers and light-minded. There devils incarnate, after all, what is a schoolmaster as a match for an Indian and looking into nature? Some people think they're only good on a trail or the warpath, but I say they are philosophers and understand a man as well as they understand a beaver, and a woman as well as they understand either. Now that Judith's character is to a ribbon. To own the truth to you, dear Slayer, I should have married the gal two years since, if it had not been for two particular things, one of which is this very light-mindedness. And what may have been the other demanded the hunter, who continued to eat like one that took very little interest in the subject. The other was an uncertainty about her having me. The Hussie is handsome, and she knows it. Boy, not a tree that is growing in these hills is straighter, or waves in the wind with an easier bend, nor did you ever see the doe that bounded with more natural motion. If that was all, every tongue would sound her praises, but she has such failings that I find it hard to overlook them, and sometimes I swear I'll never visit the lake again. Which is the reason that you always come back? Nothing has ever made more sure by swearing about it. Ah, dear Slayer, you are a novelty in these particulars, keeping as true to education as if you never left the settlements. With me the case is different, and I never want to clinch an ID that I do not feel a wish to swear about it. If you know all that I know concerning Judith, you'd find a justification for a little cussing. Now the officer sometimes stray over to the lake from the forts on the Mohawk to fish and hunt, and then the creature seems beside herself. You can see in the manner in which she wears her finery and the air she gives herself with the gallants. That is unseemly, and poor man's daughter returned dear Slayer gravely. The officers are all gentry and can only look on such as Judith with evil intentions. There's the uncertainty and the damper. I have my misgivings about a particular captain, and Jude has no one to blame but her own folly, if I'm right. On the whole, I wish to look upon her as modest and becoming, and yet the clouds that drive among these hills are not more uncertain. Not a dozen white men have ever laid eyes upon her since she was a child, and yet her heirs with two or three of these officers are extinguishers. I would think no more of such a woman, but turn my mind altogether to the forest. That will not deceive you, being ordered and ruled by a hand that never wavers. If you know Judith, you would see how much easier it is to say this than it would be to do it. Could I bring my mind to be easy about the officers? I would carry the galloff to the Mohawk by force, make her marry me in spite of her whiffling, and leave old Tom to the care of Heddy, his other child, who, if she be not as handsome or as quick-witted as her sister, is much the most dutiful. Is there another bird in the same nest, asked dear Slayer, raising his eyes with a species of half-awake in curiosity? The Delaware spoke to me of only one. That's natural enough when Judith, Hutter, and Heddy, Hutter are in question. Heddy is only comely, while her sister, I tell D-boy, is such another as not to be found between this and the sea. Judith is as full of wit and talk and cunning as an old Indian orator, while poor Heddy is at best, but compass meant us. Anan, inquired again, the dear Slayer, why, what the officers call compass meant us, which I understand to signify that she means always to go in the right direction, but sometimes does not know how. Compass, for the pint, and meant us for the intention. No, poor Heddy is what I call on the verge of ignorance, and sometimes she stumbles on the side of the line, and sometimes on the other. Them are beings that the Lord has in his special care, said dear Slayer, solemnly. For he looks carefully to all who fall short of their proper share of reason. The redskins honor and respect those who are so gifted, knowing that the evil spirit delights more to dwell in artful body than in one that has no cunning to work upon. I'll answer for it then, that he will not remain long with poor Heddy, for the child is just compass meant us, as I have told you. Old Tom has a feeling for the gal, and so has Judith, quick witted and glorious as she is herself. Else would I not answer for her being altogether safe among the sort of men that sometimes meet on the lake shore. I thought this water was an unknown and little frequented sheet, observed the dear Slayer, evidently uneasy at the idea of being too near the world. It is all that lad, the eyes of twenty white men never have been laid on it. Still, twenty true bread frontiersmen, hunters and trappers and scouts and the like can do a deal of mischief if they try. It would be an awful thing to me, dear Slayer, if I did find Judith married after an absence of six months. Have you the gal's faith to encourage you to hope otherwise? Not at all. I know not how it is. I'm a good-looking boy, that much I can see in any spring I wish the sun shines, and yet I could not get the hussy to a promise, or even a cordial, willing smile. Though she will laugh by the hour, if she has dared to marry in my absence, she'd be like to know the pleasures of a widowhood afore she is twenty. You would not harm the man she has chosen, hurries, simply because she found him more to her liking than yourself. Why not? If an enemy crosses my path, will I not beat him out of it? Look at me. Am I a man like to let any sneaking, crawling, skin-trader get the better of me, and a matter that touches me as near as a kindness of Judith Hutter? Besides, when we live beyond law, we must be our own judges and executioners, and if a man should be found dead in the woods, who is there to say who slew him, even admitting that the colony took the matter in hand and made a stir about it. If that man should be Judith Hutter's husband after what has passed, I might tell enough at least to put the colony on the trail. You, half-grown, venison-hunting-bantling, you dare to think of informing against Harry, Harry, and so much as a matter of touching a mink or a woodchuck. I would dare to speak truth, Harry, concerning you or any man that ever lived. March looked at his companion for a moment in silent amazement, then seizing him by the throat with both hands, he shook his comparatively slight frame with violence that menaced the dislocation of some of the bones. Nor was this done jocularly for anger flashed from the giant's eyes, and there was certain signs that seemed to threaten much more earnestness than the occasion would appear to call for. Whatever might be the real intention of March, and it is possible there was none settled in his mind, it is certain that he was unusually aroused, and most men who found themselves throttled by one of the mold so gigantic in such a mood and in the solitude so deep and helpless would have felt intimidated and tempted to yield even the right. Not so, however, with Dear Slayer. His countenance remained unmoved, and his hand did not shake, and his answer was given in a voice that did not resort to the artifice of louder tones, even by way of proving his owner's resolution. You may shake hurry until you bring down the mountain, he said quietly, but nothing besides truth will you shake from me. It is probable that Judith Hutter has no husband to slay, and you may never have a chance to waylay one. Else would I tell her of your threat in the first conversation I held with the gal. March released his grip and set regarding the other in silent astonishment. I thought we had been friends, he at length added, but you've got the last secret of mine that will ever enter your ears. I want none if they are to be like this. I know we live in the woods hurry and are thought to be beyond human laws, and perhaps we are so, in fact, whatever it may be in right, but there is a law and a lawmaker that rule across the whole continent. He that flies in the face of either need not call me a friend. Damn, dear Slayer, if I do not believe you are at heart a Morovian and no fair-minded, plain-dealing hunter as you pretended to be, fair-minded or not, hurry, you will find me as plain-dealing in deeds as I am in words, but this giving way to sudden anger is foolish and proves how little you have sojourned with the red man. Judith-hutter, no doubt, is still single, and you spoke but as the tongue ran, and not as the heart felt. There is my hand, and we will say and think no more about it. Hurry seemed more surprised than ever, than he burst forth in a loud, good-natured laugh, which brought tears to his eyes. After this he accepted the offered hand, and the parties became friends. It would have been foolish to quarrel about an ID, March cried, as he resumed his meal, and more like lawyers in towns than like sensible men in woods. They tell me, dear Slayer, much ill blood grows out of IDs among the people in the lower counties, and that they sometimes get to extremities upon them. That do they, that do they, and about other matters that might better be left to take care of themselves. I've heard the Morovians say that they are lands in which men quarrel even concerning their religion, and if they can get their tempers up on such a subject hurry, the Lord have mercy on them. However, there is no occasion for our following their example, and more especially about a husband that this Judith-hutter may never see or never wish to see. For my part, I feel more curiosity about the feeble witted sister than about your beauty. There's something that comes close to a man's feelings when he meets with a fellow creature that has all the outward show of an uncountable mortal and who fails of being what he seems, only through a lack of reason. This is bad enough in a man, but when it comes to a woman, and she a young and maybe a winning creature, it touches all the pitiful thoughts that nature has. God knows, hurry, that such poor things be defenseless enough with all their wits about them, but it's a cruel fortune when that great protector and guide fails them. Hark, dear Slayer, you know what the hunters and trappers and peltry men in general be, and their best friends will not deny that they are headstrong and given to having their own way without much to be thinking of other people's rights or feelings, and yet I don't think the man is to be found in all this region who would harm Hedy-hutter if he could. No, not even a red skin. They're in friend hurry. You do the Delaware's, at least, and all their allied tribes, only justice, for a red skin looks upon a being thus struck by God's power as especially under his care. I rejoice to hear what you say, however, I rejoice to hear it. But as the sun is beginning to turn towards the afternoon sky, have we not better strike the trail again and make forward, that we may get an opportunity of seeing these wonderful sisters? Hurry, March, giving a cheerful ascent, the remnants of the meal were soon collected. Then the travelers shouldered their packs, resumed their arms, and, quitting the little area of light, they again plunged into the deep shadows of the forest. CHAPTER II Thou art passing from the lake's green side and the hunter's hearth away. For the time of flowers, for the summer's pride, daughter, thou canst not stay. Mrs. Hemons, Edith, a tale of the woods, Part II, 191 to 94. Our two adventurers had not far to go. Hurry knew the direction as soon as he had found the open spot in the spring, and he now led on with the confident step of a man assured of his object. The forest was dark, as a matter of course, but it was no longer obstructed by underbrush, and the footing was firm and dry. After proceeding near a mile, March stopped, and began to cast about him with an inquiring look, examining the different objects with care and occasionally turning his eyes on the trunks of the fallen trees, with which the ground was well sprinkled, as is usually the case in an American wood, especially in those parts of the country where timber has not yet become valuable. This must be the place, dear Slayer, March at length observed. Here is a beach by the side of a hemlock with three pines at hand, and yonder is a white birch with a broken top, and yet I see no rock nor any of the branches bent down as I told you would be the case. Broken branches are unskillful landmarks, as the least experienced know that branches don't often break of themselves, returned the other, and they also lead to suspicion and discoveries. The Delaware is never trust to broken branches unless it is in friendly times and on an open trail. As for the beaches and pines and hemlocks, why, they are to be seen on all sides of us not only by twos and threes, but by forties and fifties and hundreds. Very true, dear Slayer, but you never calculate on position. Here is a beach and a hemlock. Yes, and there is another beach and a hemlock as loving as two brothers, or for that matter more loving than some brothers. And yonder are others, for neither tree is a rarity in these woods. I fear me, hurry, you are better at trapping beaver and shooting bears than at leading on a blindish sort of a trail. Ha! there is what you wish to find after all. Now, dear Slayer, this is one of your Delaware pretensions, for hang me if I see anything but these trees, which do seem to start up around us in a most unaccountable and perplexing manner. Look this away, hurry. Here, in a line with the black oak, don't you see the crooked sapling that is hooked up in the branches of the basswood near it? Now, that sapling was once snow-ridden, and got the bend by its weight, but it never straightened itself and fastened itself in among the basswood branches in the way you see. The hand of man did that act of kindness for it. That hand was mine, exclaimed hurry. I found the slender young thing bent to the earth, like an unfortunate creature born down by misfortune, and stuck it up where you see it. After all, dear Slayer, I must allow you're getting to have an uncommon good eye for the woods. Tis improving, hurry. Tis improving. I will acknowledge. But tis only a child's eye compared to some I know. There's Tamanund now, though a man so old that few remember when he was in his prime. Tamanund lets nothing escape his look which is more like the scent of a hound than the sight of an eye. Then Uncus, the father of Chingachuk, and the lawful chief of the Mohicans, is another that it is almost hopeless to pass unseen. I'm improving, I will allow. I'm improving, but far from being perfect as yet. And who is this Chingachuk, of whom you talk so much, dear Slayer? Asked hurry, as he moved off in the direction of the righted sapling. A loping red skin at the best, I make no question. Not so, hurry, but the best of loping red skins, as you call him. If he had his rights he would be a great chief, but as it is he is only a brave and just-minded Delaware, respected and even obeyed in some things, tis true, but of a fallen race, and belonging to a fallen people. Ah, Harry March, who'd warm the heart within you to sit in their lodges of a winter's night and listen to the traditions of the ancient greatness and power of the Mohicans. Harky, friend Nathaniel, said hurry, stopping short to face his companion in order that his words might carry greater weight with them. If a man believed all that other people choose to say in their own favor, he might get an oversized opinion of them and an undersized opinion of himself. These red skins are notable boasters, and I sit down more than half of their traditions as pure talk. There is truth in what you say, hurry, I'll not deny it, for I've seen it, and believe it. They do boast, but then that is a gift from nature, and it's sinful to withstand natural gifts. See, this is the spot you come to find. This remark cuts short the discourse, and both the men now give all their attention to the object immediately before them. Dear Slayer pointed out to his companion the trunk of a huge linden, or basswood, as it is termed in the language of the country, which had filled its time and fallen by its own weight. This tree, like so many millions of its brethren, lay where it had fallen, and was mouldering under the slow but certain influence of the seasons. The decay, however, had attacked its center, even while it stood erect in the pride of vegetation bellowing out its heart as disease sometimes destroys the vitals of animal life, even while a fair exterior is presented to the observer. As the trunk lay stretched for near a hundred feet along the earth, the quick eye of the hunter detected this peculiarity, and from this and other circumstances he knew it to be the tree of which March was in search. I, here we have what we want, cried hurry, looking in at the larger end of the linden. Everything is as snug as if it had been left in an old woman's cupboard. Come, lend me a hand, dear Slayer, and we'll be afloat in half an hour. At this call the hunter joined his companion, and the two went to work deliberately and regularly, like men accustomed to the sort of thing in which they were employed. In the first place hurry removed some pieces of bark that lay before the large opening in the tree, and which the other declared to be disposed in a way that would have been more likely to attract attention than it could seal the cover. Had any straggler passed that way? The two then drew out a bark canoe, containing its seats, paddles, and other appliances, even to fishing lines and rods. This vessel was by no means small, but such was its comparative lightness and so gigantic was the strength of hurry that the latter shouldered it with seeming ease declining all assistance even in the act of raising it to the awkward position in which he was obliged to hold it. Weed ahead, dear Slayer, said March, and opened the bushes, the rest I can do for myself. The other obeyed, and the men left the spot, dear Slayer clearing the way for his companion and inclining to the rider to the left as the latter directed. In about ten minutes they both broke suddenly into the brilliant light of the sun on a low gravely point that was washed by water on quite half its outline. An exclamation of surprise broke from the lips of dear Slayer, an exclamation that was low and guardedly made, however, for his habits were much more thoughtful and regulated than those of the reckless hurry. When on reaching the margin of the lake he beheld the view that unexpectedly met his gaze. It was, in truth, sufficiently striking to merit a brief description. On a level with the point lay a broad sheet of water, so placid and limpid that it resembled a bed of the pure mountain atmosphere, compressed into a setting of hills and woods. Its length was about three leagues, while its breadth was irregular, expanding to half a league or even more, opposite to the point, and contracting to less than half that distance more to the southward. Of course its margin was irregular, being indented by bays and broken by many projecting low points. At its northern or nearest end it was bounded by an isolated mountain, lower land falling off east and west, gracefully relieving the sweep of the outline. Still the character of the country was mountainous, high hills or low mountains rising abruptly from the water on quite nine-tenths of its circuit. The exceptions, indeed, only served a little to vary the scene, and even beyond the parts of the shore that were comparatively low the background was high, though more distant. But the most striking peculiarities of this scene were its solemn solitude and sweet repose. On all sides, wherever the eye turned, nothing met it but the mirror-like surface of the lake, the placid view of heaven and the dense setting of woods. So rich and fleecy were the outlines of the forest that scarce an opening could be seen, the whole visible earth from the rounded mountain top to the water's edge, presenting one unvaried hue of unbroken verger. As if vegetation were not satisfied with a triumph so complete, the trees overhung the lake itself, shooting out towards the light, and they were miles along its eastern shore where a boat might have pulled beneath the branches of dark, rembrant-looking hemlocks, quivering aspens and melancholy pines. In a word, the hand of man had never defaced or deformed any part of this native scene, which lay bathed in the sunlight, a glorious picture of affluent forest grandeur, softened by the balminess of June, and relieved by the beautiful variety afforded by the presence of so broad an expanse of water. This is grand, to solemn, to an education of itself, to look upon, exclaimed dear Slayer, as he stood leaning on his rifle, and gazing to the right and left, north and south, above and beneath, in whichever direction his eye could wander. Not a tree disturbed even by a red-skinned hand, as I can discover, but everything left in the ordering of the Lord to live and die according to his own designs and laws. Hurry, your Judith ought to be a moral and well- disposed young woman, if she has passed half the time you mention in the centre of a spot so favoured. That's naked truth! And yet the gal has the vagaries. All her time has not been passed here, how so ever, old Tom having the custom, of where I knowed him, of going to spend the winters in the neighbourhood of the settlers, or under the guns of the forts. No, no, Jude has caught more than is for her good from the settlers, and especially from the galantifying officers. If she has, if she has, hurry, this is a school to set her mind right again. But what is this I see off here, abreast of us, that seems too small for an island and too large for a boat, though it stands in the midst of the water? Why, that is what these gallantine gentry from the forts call Musgrat Castle, and old Tom himself will grin at the name, though it bears so hard on his own nature and character. Tis the stationery house there being too, this which never moves, and the other that floats, being sometimes in one part of the lake and sometimes in another. The last goes by the name of the Ark, though what may be the meaning of the word is more than I can tell you. It must come from the missionaries, hurry, whom I have heard speak, and read of such a thing. They say that the earth was once covered with water, and that Noah, with his children, was saved from drowning by building a vessel called an ark, in which he embarked in season. Some of the Delaware's believe this tradition, and some deny it, but it behooves you and me as white men born to put our faith in its truth. Do you see anything of this ark? Tis down south, no doubt, or anchored in some of the bays, but the canoe is ready, and fifteen minutes will carry two such paddles as your and mine to the castle. At this suggestion, dear Slayer helped his companion to place the different articles in the canoe which was already afloat. This was no sooner done than the two frontiermen embarked, and by a vigorous push sent the light-bark some eight or ten rods from the shore. Hurry now took the seat in the stern, while dear Slayer placed himself forward, and by leisurely but steady strokes of the paddles the canoe glided across the placid sheet, towards the extraordinary-looking structure that the former had styled Musgrat Castle. Several times the men ceased paddling, and looked about them at the scene as new glimpses opened from behind points, enabling them to see farther down the lake, or to get broader views of the wooded mountains. The only changes, however, were in the new forms of the hills, the varying curvature of the bays, and the wider reaches of the valley south, the whole earth apparently being clothed in a gala-dress of leaves. This is a sight to warm the heart, exclaimed dear Slayer, when they had thus stopped for the fourth or fifth time. The lake seems made to let us get an insight into the noble forests, and land in water alike stand in the beauty of God's providence. Do you say, hurry, that there is no man who calls himself lawful owner of all these glories? None but the king, lad, he may pretend to some right of that nature, but he is so far away that his claim will never trouble old Tom Hutter, who has got possession, and is like to keep it, as long as his life lasts. Tom is no squatter, not being on land. I call him a floater. I envy that man. I know it's wrong and I strive again the feeling. But I envy that man. Don't think hurry that I'm consorting any plan to put myself in his moccasins, for such a thought doesn't harbor in my mind. But I can't help a little envy. It is a natural feeling, and the best of us are but natural, at all, and give way to such feelings at times. You've only to marry Hattie to inherit half the estate, cried hurry, laughing. The gala's comely. Nay, if it wasn't for her sister's beauty she would be even handsome. And then her wits are so small that you may easily convert her into one of your own way of thinking, in all things. Do you take Hattie off the old fellow's hands, and I'll engage he'll give you an interest in every deer you can knock over within five miles of his lake? Does game abound? suddenly demanded the other, who paid but little attention to March's railery. It has the country to itself. Scarce a trigger is pulled on it. And as for the trappers, this is not a region they greatly frequent. I ought not to be so much here myself, but Jude pulls one away, while the beaver pulls another. More than a hundred Spanish dollars has that creature cost me in the last two seasons, and yet I could not forego the wish to look upon her face once more. Do the red men often visit this lake hurry, continued dear slayer, pursuing his own train of thought? Why, they come and go. Sometimes in parties, and sometimes singly. The country seems to belong to no native tribe in particular, and so it has fallen into the hands of the Hutter tribe. The old man tells me that some sharp ones have been wheedling the Mohawks for an Indian deed, in order to get a title out of the colony, but nothing has come of it, seeing that no one heavy enough for such a trade has yet meddled with the matter. The hunters have a good life lease still of this wilderness. So much the better, so much the better, hurry. If I was king of England, the man that felled one of these trees without good occasion for the timber, should be banished to a deserted and forlorn region in which no four-footed animal ever trod. Right glad am I that Chingach Cook appointed our meeting on this lake, for hitherto I of mine never looked on such a glorious spectacle. That's because you kept so much among the Delaware's, in whose country there are no lakes. Now, farther north and farther west, these bits of water abound. And you're young, you may yet live to see them. But though there be other lakes, dear Slayer, there's no other Judith Hutter. At this remark his companion smiled, and then he dropped his paddle into the water as if in consideration of a lover's haste. Both now pulled vigorously until they got within a hundred yards of the castle, as hurry familiarly called the House of Hutter, when they again ceased paddling, the admirer of Judith restraining his impatience the more readily as he perceived that the building was untenanted at the moment. This new pause was to enable dear Slayer to survey the singular edifice which was of a construction so novel as to merit a particular description. Musgrat Castle, as the house had been facetiously named by some waggish officer, stood in the open lake at a distance of fully a quarter of a mile from the nearest shore. On every other side the water extended much farther, the precise position being distant about two miles from the northern end of the sheet, and near, if not quite, a mile from its eastern shore. As there was not the smallest appearance of any island, but the house stood on piles with the water flowing beneath it, and dear Slayer had already discovered that the lake was of a great depth, he was famed to ask an explanation of this singular circumstance. Hurry solved the difficulty by telling him that on this spot alone a long, narrow shoal, which extended for a few hundred yards in a north and south direction, rose within six or eight feet of the surface of the lake, and that Hutter had driven piles into it, and placed his habitation on them for the purpose of security. The old fellow was burned out three times between the Indians and the hunters, and in one affray with the redskins he lost his only son since which time he has taken to the water for safety. No one can attack him here without coming in a boat, and the plunder and scalps would scarce be worth the trouble of digging out canoes. Then it's by no means certain which would whip in such a scrimmage, for old Tom is well supplied with arms and ammunition, and the castle, as you may see, is a tight breastwork again light shot. Dear Slayer had some theoretical knowledge of frontier warfare, though he had never yet been called on to raise his hand in anger against a fellow creature. He saw that Hurry did not overrate the strength of this position in a military point of view, since it would not be easy to attack it without exposing the assailants to the fire of the besieged. A good deal of art had also been manifested in the disposition of the timber of which the building was constructed and which afforded a protection much greater than was usual to the ordinary log cabins of the frontier. The sides and ends were composed of the trunks of large pines, cut about nine feet long, and placed upright instead of being laid horizontally, as was the practice of the country. These logs were squared on three sides and had large tenons on each end. Massive sills were secured on the heads of the piles with suitable grooves dug out of their upper surfaces, which had been squared for the purpose, and the lower tenons of the upright pieces were placed in these grooves, giving them secure fastening below. Plates had been laid on the upper ends of the upright logs and were kept in their places by a similar contrivance, the several corners of the structure being well fastened by scarfing and pinning the sills and plates. The doors were made of smaller logs, similarly squared, and the roof was composed of light poles firmly united and well covered with bark. The effect of this ingenious arrangement was to give its owner a house that could be approached only by water, the sides of which were composed of logs closely wedged together which were two feet thick in their thinnest parts, and which could be separated only by a deliberate and laborious use of human hands, or by the slow operation of time. The outer surface of the building was rude and uneven, the logs being of unequal sizes, but the squared surfaces within each gave both the sides and door as uniform an appearance as was desired, either for use or show. The chimney was not the least singular portion of the castle, as hurry made his companion observe while he explained the process by which it had been made. The material was a stiff clay, properly worked, which had been put together in a mold of sticks and suffered to harden, a foot or two at a time commencing at the bottom, when the entire chimney had thus been raised and had been properly bound in with outward props. A brisk fire was kindled and kept going until it was burned to something like a brick red. This had not been an easy operation, nor had it succeeded entirely, but by dint of filling the cracks with fresh clay, a safe fireplace and chimney had been obtained in the end. This part of the work stood on the log door, secured beneath by an extra pile. There were a few other peculiarities about this dwelling which will better appear in the course of the narrative. Old Thomas, full of contrivances, added hurry, and he set his heart on the success of his chimney which threatened more than once to give out altogether. But perseverance will even overcome smoke, and now he has a comfortable cabin of it, though it did promise at one time to be a chinky sort of a flu to carry flames at fire. You seem to know the whole history of the castle, hurry! Chimney and Sides, said dear Slayer, smiling, is love so overcoming that it causes a man to study the story of his sweetheart's habitation? Partly that lad, and partly eyesight, returned the good nature giant laughing. There was a large gang of us in the lake, the summer the old fellow built, and we helped him along with the job. I raised no small part of the weight of them uprights with my own shoulders, and the axis flew I can inform you, Master Natty, while we were being it among the trees ashore. The old devil is no waste ingy about food, and as we had often eat at his hearth we thought we would just house him comfortably, before we went to Albany with our skins. Yes, many as the meal I've swallowed in Tom Hutter's cabins, and heady, though so weak in the way of wits, has a wonderful particular way about a frying pan or a gridiron. While the parties were thus discoursing, the canoe had been gradually drawing nearer to the castle, and was now so close as to require but a single stroke of a paddle to reach the landing. This was at a floored platform in front of the entrance, that might have been some twenty feet square. Old Tom calls this sort of a wharf his dooryard, observed hurry, as he fastened the canoe after he and his companion had left it, and the gallants from the forts have named it the Castle Court, though what a court can have to do here is more than I can tell you seeing that there is no law. Tis as I supposed, not a soul within, but the whole family is off on a voyage of discovery. While hurry was bustling about the dooryard, examining the fishing spears, rods, nets, and other similar appliances of a frontier cabin, dear Slayer, whose manner was altogether more rebuked and quiet, entered the building with a curiosity that was not usually exhibited by one so long trained in Indian habits. The interior of the castle was as faultlessly neat as its exterior was novel. The entire space, some twenty feet by forty, was subdivided into several small sleeping rooms, the apartment into which he first entered, serving equally for the ordinary uses of its inmates, and for a kitchen. The furniture was of the strange mixture that it is not uncommon to find in the remotely situated log tenements of the interior. Most of it was rude and to the last degree rustic, but there was a clock with a handsome case of dark wood in a corner and two or three chairs with a table and bureau that had evidently come from some dwelling of more than usual pretension. The clock was industriously ticking, but its leaden-looking hands did no discredit to their dull aspect, for they pointed to the hour of eleven, though the sun plainly showed it was some time past the turn of the day. It was also a dark, massive chest. The kitchen utensils were of the simplest kind and far from numerous, but every article was in its place and showed the nicest care in its condition. After dear Slayer had cast a look about him in the outer room, he raised a wooden latch and entered a narrow passage that divided the inner end of the house into two equal parts, frontier usages being no way scrupulous, and his curiosity being strongly excited, the young man now opened a door and found himself in a bedroom. A single glance sufficed to show that the apartment belonged to females. The bed was of the feathers of wild geese and filled nearly to overflowing, but it lay in a rude bunk raised only a foot from the door. On one side of it were arranged on pegs various dresses of a quality much superior to what one would expect to meet in such a place, with ribbons and other similar articles to correspond. Pretty shoes, with handsome silver buckles such as were then worn by females in easy circumstances, were not wanting, and no less than six fans of gay colors were placed half open in a way to catch the eye by their conceits and hues. Even the pillow on this side of the bed was covered with finer linen than its companion, and it was ornamented with a small ruffle. A cap, coquettishly decorated with ribbons hung above it, and a pair of long gloves such as were rarely used in those days by persons of the laboring classes, were pinned ostentatiously to it, as if with an intention to exhibit them there if they could not be shown on the owner's arms. All this dear slayer saw, and noted with a degree of minuteness that would have done credit to the habitual observation of his friends, the Delaware's. Nor did he fail to perceive the distinction that existed between the appearances on the different sides of the bed, the head of which stood against the wall. On that opposite to the one just described, everything was homely and uninviting except through its perfect neatness. The few garments that were hanging from the pegs were of the coarsest materials and of the commonest forms, while nothing seemed made for show. Of ribbons there was not one, nor was there either cap or kerchief beyond those which Hutter's daughters might be fairly entitled to wear. It was now several years since dear slayer had been on a spot especially devoted to the uses of females of his own color and race. The sight brought back to his mind a rush of childish recollections, and he lingered in the room with a tenderness of feeling to which he had long been a stranger. He bethought him of his mother, whose homely vestments he remembered to have seen hanging on pegs like those which he felt must belong to had he hutter, and he bethought himself of a sister, whose incipient and native taste for finery had exhibited itself somewhat in the manner of that of Judith. Though necessarily in a less degree, these little resemblances opened a long hidden vein of sensations, and as he quitted the room it was with a saddened mien. He looked no further, but returned slowly and thoughtfully towards the door-yard. If old Tom has taken to a new calling and has been trying his hand at the traps, cried hurry, who had been coolly examining the boarder's implements. If that is his humor and you're disposed to remain in these parts we can make an uncommon comfortable season of it, for while the old man and I out-knowledge the beaver, you can fish and knock down the deer to keep body and soul together. I've always give the poor hunters half a share, but one is active and certain as yourself might expect a full one. Thank ye, hurry. Thank ye with all my heart, but I do a little beavering for myself as occasion's offer. It is true the Delaware's call me deerslayer, but it's not so much because I'm pretty fatal with the venison as because that while I kill so many bucks and does, I've never yet taken the life of a fellow creature. They say their traditions do not tell of another who had shed so much blood of animals that had not shed the blood of man. I hope they don't account you chicken-hearted lad, a faint-hearted man is like a no-tailed beaver. I don't believe, hurry, that they account me as out of the way timbersome, even though they may not account me as out of the way brave. But I'm not quarrelsome, and that goes a great way towards keeping blood off the hands, among the hunters and redskins, and then, Harry March, it keeps blood off the conscience, too. Well, for my part I account game, a redskin, and a Frenchman as pretty much the same thing. Though I'm as unquarrelsome a man, too, as there is in all the colonies, I despise a quarrel or as I do a cur-dog, but one has no need to be over-scruplesome when it's the right time to show the flint. I look upon him as the most of a man who acts nearest the right, hurry, but this is a glorious spot and my eyes never a weary looking at it. Tis your first acquaintance with the lake, and these ideas come over us all at such times. Lakes have a gentle character, as I say, being pretty much water and land, and points and bays. As this definition by no means met the feelings that were uppermost in the mind of the young hunter, he made no immediate answer, but stood gazing at the dark hills and the glassy water in silent enjoyment. Have the governors or the king's people given this lake a name? He suddenly asked. As if struck with a new idea. If they've not begun to blaze their trees and set up their compasses and line off their maps, it's likely they've not be thought them to disturb nature with a name. They've not got to that yet, and the last time I went in with skins one of the king's surveyors was questioning me concerning all the region hereabouts. He had heard that there was a lake in this quarter and had got some general notions about it, such as that there was water and hills, but how much of either he know'd no more than you know of the Mohawk tongue. I didn't open the trap any wider than was necessary, giving him but poor encouragement in the way of farms and clearings. In short, I left on his mind some such opinion of this country as a man gets of a spring of dirty water with a path to it that is so muddy that one mires before he sets out. He told me they hadn't got the spot down yet on their maps, though I conclude that is a mistake, for he showed me his parchment and there is a lake down on it where there is no lake in fact, and which is about fifty miles from the place where it ought to be, if they meant it for this. I don't think my account will encourage him to mark down another by way of improvement. Here hurry laughed heartily such tricks being particularly grateful to a set of men who dreaded the approaches of civilization as a curtailment of their own lawless empire. The egregious errors that existed in the maps of the day, all of which were made in Europe, were, moreover, a standing topic of ridicule among them, for if they had not science enough to make any better themselves, they had sufficient local information to detect the gross blunders contained in those that existed. Anyone who will take the trouble to compare these unanswerable evidences of the topographical skill of our fathers a century since, with the more accurate sketches of our own time, will at once perceive that the men of the woods had a sufficient justification for all their criticism on this branch of the skill of the colonial governments, which did not at all hesitate to place a river or a lake a degree or two out of the way, even though they lay within a day's march of the inhabited parts of the country. I'm glad it has no name, resumed dear Slayer, or at least no pale-faced name, for their christenings always foretell waste and destruction. No doubt, howsoever, the redskins have their modes of knowing it, and the hunters and trappers, too, they are likely to call the place by something reasonable and resembling. As for the tribes, each has its tongue and its own way of calling things, and they treat this part of the world just as they treat all others. Among ourselves we've got to calling the place the glimmer-glass, seeing that its whole basin is so often hinged with pines cast upward to its face as if it would throw back the hills that hang over it. There is an outlet, I know, for all lakes have outlets, and the rocket which I am to meet Jingochuk stands near an outlet. Has that no colony name yet? In that particular they've got the advantage of us having one end, and that the biggest, in their own keeping. They've given it a name which has found its way up to its source, names naturally working upstream. No doubt, dear Slayer, you've seen the Susquehanna down in the Delaware country? That I have, and hunted along its banks a hundred times. That and this are the same in fact, and I suppose the same in sound. I am glad they've been compelled to keep the Red Men's name, for it would be too hard to rob them of both land and name. Dear Slayer made no answer, but he stood leaning on his rifle gazing at the view which so much delighted him. The reader is not to suppose, however, that it was the picturesque alone which so strongly attracted his attention. The spot was very lovely of a truth, and it was then seen in one of its most favorable moments, the surface of the lake being as smooth as glass and as limpid as pure air, throwing back the mountains, clothed in dark pines, along the whole of its eastern boundary. The points thrusting forward their trees even to nearly horizontal lines, while the bays were seen glittering through an occasional arch beneath, left by a vault fretted with branches and leaves. It was the air of deep repose, the solitudes that spoke of scenes and forests untouched by the hands of man. The rain of nature in a word that gave so much pure delight to one of his habits and turn of mind. Still, he felt, though it was unconsciously, like a poet also. If he found a pleasure in studying this large and to him unusual opening into the mysteries and forms of the woods, as one is gratified in getting broader views of any subject that is long occupied his thoughts, he was not insensible to the innate loveliness of such a landscape, neither, but felt a portion of that soothing of the spirit which is a common attendant of a scene so thoroughly pervaded by the holy cairn of nature. CHAPTER III. OF THE DEER SLAYER. The Deer Slayer. CHAPTER III. Come, shall we go and kill us, Venison? And yet it irks me, the poor dappled foals, being native burgers of this desert city, should, in their own confines, with forked heads have their round haunches gored. As you like it. ACTE II. SCENE I. Lines 21-25. Hurry, Harry, thought more of the beauties of Judith Hutter than of those of the glimmer glass and its accompanying scenery. As soon as he had taken a sufficiently intimate survey of Floating Tom's implements, therefore, he summoned his companion to the canoe, that they might go down the lake in quest of the family. Previously to embarking, however, Harry carefully examined the whole of the northern end of the water with an indifferent ship's glass that formed a part of Hutter's effects. In this scrutiny no part of the shore was overlooked, the bays and points in particular being subjected to a closer inquiry than the rest of the wooded boundary. "'Tis as I thought,' said Harry, laying aside the glass, the old fellow is drifting about the south end this fine weather and has left the castle to defend itself. Well, now we know that he is not up this way. It will be but a small matter to paddle down and hunt him up in his hiding-place.' Does Master Hutter think it necessary to burrow on this lake, inquired dear Slayer, as he followed his companion into the canoe? To my eye it is such a solitude as one might open his whole soul in, and fear no one to disarrange his thoughts or his worship. You forget your friends the mingos, and all the French savages. Is there a spot on earth, dear Slayer, to which them disquiet rogues don't go? Where is the lake, or even the deer-lick, that the blackards don't find out, and having found out, don't sooner or later discolor its water with blood? I hear no good character of them certainly, friend Harry, though I've never been called on yet to meet them, or any other mortal on the war-path. I dare to say that such a lovely spot as this would not be likely to be overlooked by such plunderers, for, though I've not been in the way of quarreling with them tribes myself, the Delaware's give me such an account of them that I pretty much set them down, in my own mind, as thorough miscreants. You may do that with a safe conscience, or for that matter any other savage you may happen to meet. Here dear Slayer protested, and as they went paddling down the lake a hot discussion was maintained concerning the respective merits of the palefaces and the redskins. Harry had all the prejudices and antipathies of a white hunter, who generally regards the Indian as a sort of natural competitor, and not unfrequently as a natural enemy. As a matter of course he was loud, clamorous, dogmatical, and not very argumentative. Dear Slayer, on the other hand, manifested a very different temper, proving by the moderation of his language, the fairness of his views, and the simplicity of his distinctions, that he possessed every disposition to hear reason, a strong innate desire to do justice, and an ingenuousness that was singularly indisposed to have recourse to sophism, to maintain an argument, or to defend a prejudice. Still he was not altogether free from the influence of the latter feeling. This tyrant of the human mind which ruses on it pray through a thousand avenues almost as soon as men begin to think and feel, and which seldom relinquishes its iron sway until they cease to do either, had made some impression on even the just propensities of this individual, who probably offered in these particulars a fair specimen of what absence from bad example, the want of temptation to go wrong and native good feeling, can render youth. You will allow, dear Slayer, that Amingo is more than half devil, cried Hurry, following up the discussion with an animation that touched closely on ferocity, though you want to over persuade me that the Delaware tribe is pretty much made up of angels. Now I gain say that proposal concerning white men even. All white men are not faultless, and therefore all Indians can't be faultless. And so your argument is out at the elbow in the start. But this is what I call reason. Here's three colors on earth. White, black, and red. White is the highest color and therefore the best man. Black comes next, and is put to live in the neighborhood of the white man as tolerable, and fit to be made use of. And red comes last, which shows that those that made him never expected an Indian to be accounted as more than half human. God made all three alike, Hurry. Alike! Do you call a nigger like a white man or me like an Indian? You go off at half-cock, and don't hear me out. God made us all, white, black, and red. And no doubt had his own wise intentions in coloring us differently. Still he made us, in the main, much the same in feelings. Though I'll not deny that he gave each race its gifts. A white man's gifts are Christianized, while a red skin's are more for the wilderness. Thus it would be a great offense for a white man to scalp the dead, whereas it's a signal virtue in an Indian. Then again a white man cannot ambush women and children in war, while a red skin may. To scrule work I'll allow, but for them it's lawful work, while for us it would be grievous work. That depends on your enemy. As for scalping, or even skinning a savage, I look upon them pretty much the same as cutting off the ears of wolves for the bounty, or stripping a bear of its hide. And then you're out significantly as to taking the pole of a red skin in hand, seeing that the very colony has offered a bounty for the job. All the same as it pays for wolves' ears and crow's heads. I, and a bad business it is, hurry, even the Indians themselves cry shame on it, seeing it's again a white man's gifts. I do not pretend that all that white men do is properly Christianized, and according to the lights given them, for then they would be what they ought to be, which we know they are not. But I will maintain that tradition and use and color and laws make such a difference in races as to amount to gifts. I do not deny that there are tribes among the Indians that are naturally perverse and wicked, as there are nations among the whites. Now, I account the mingles as belonging to the first, and the Frenchers, in the Canada's, to the last. In a state of lawful warfare, such as we have lately got into, it is a duty to keep down all compassionate feelings so far as life goes, again either. But when it comes to scalps, it's a very different matter. Just here can, to reason, if you please, dear slayer, and tell me if the colony can make an unlawful law. Isn't an unlawful law more again nature than scalp and a savage? A law can no more be unlawful than truth can be a lie. That sounds reasonable, but it has a most unreasonable bearing, hurry. Laws don't all come from the same quarter. God has given us hisn, and some come from the colony, and others come from the king and parliament. When the colony's laws, or even the king's laws, run again the laws of God, they get to be unlawful, and ought not to be obeyed. I hold to a white man's respecting white laws, so long as they do not cross the track of a law common from a higher authority, and for a red man to obey his own red-skinned usages under the same privilege. But his useless talking as each man will think for himself, and have his say agreeable to his thoughts. Let us keep a good look out for your friend floating time, lest we pass him, as he lies hidden under this bushy shore. Deer slayer had not named the borders of the lake Amiss. Along their whole length the smaller trees overhung the water, with their branches often dipping in the transparent element. The banks were steep, even from the narrow strand, and, as vegetation invariably struggles towards the light, the effect was precisely that at which the lover of the picturesque would have aimed had the ordering of this glorious setting of forest been submitted to his control. The points in Bayes, too, were sufficiently numerous to render the outline broken and diversified. As the canoe kept close along the western side of the lake, with a view, as hurry had explained to his companion of reconnoitering for enemies, before he trusted himself to openly incite the expectations of the two adventurers were kept constantly on the stretch, as neither could foretell what the next turning of a point might reveal. Their progress was swift, the gigantic strength of hurry enabling him to play with the light bark as if it had been a feather, while the skill of his companion almost equalized their usefulness, notwithstanding the disparity in natural means. Each time the canoe passed a point, hurry turned a look behind him, expecting to see the ark anchored or beached in the bay. He was fated to be disappointed, however, and they had got within a mile of the southern end of the lake or a distance of quite two leagues from the castle, which was now hidden from view by half a dozen intervening projections of the land, when he suddenly ceased paddling, as if uncertain in what direction next to steer. It is possible that the old chap has dropped into the river, said hurry, after looking carefully along the whole of the eastern shore, which was about a mile distant and open to his scrutiny for more than half its length. For he has taken to trapping considerable of late, and barring flood-wood he might drop down at a mile or so, though he would have a most scratching time in getting back again. Where is this outlet? asked, dear Slayer. I see no opening in the banks or the trees that looks as if it would let a river like the Susquehanna run through it. I, dear Slayer, rivers are like human mortals, having small beginnings and ending with broad shoulders and wide mouths. You don't see the outlet because it passes between high steep banks, and the pines and hemlocks and bas-woods hang over it, as a roof hangs over a house. If old Tom is not in the rat's cove, he must have burrowed in the river. We'll look for him first in the cove, and then we'll cross to the outlet. As they proceeded, Hury explained that there was a shallow bay formed by a long low point that had got the name of the rat's cove from the circumstance of its being a favorite haunt of the muskrat, and which offered so complete a cover for the ark that its owner was found of lying in it, whenever he found it convenient. As a man never knows who may be his visitors in this part of the country, continued Hury, it's a great advantage to get a good look at him before they come too near. Now it's war, such caution is more than commonly useful, since a Canada man or a mingo might get into his hut before he invited him. But hudder is a first-rate look outer, and can pretty much sense danger, as a hound sense the deer. I should think the castle so open that it would be certain to draw enemies, if any happen to find the lake. A thing unlikely enough I will allow, as it's off the trail of the forts and settlements. Why dear Slayer, I've got to believe that a man meets with enemies easier than he meets with friends. It's skierful to think for how many causes one gets to be your enemy, and for how few your friend. Some take up the hatchet because you don't think just as they think, others some because you run ahead of him in the same IDs. And I once knowed a vagabond that quarreled with a friend because he didn't think him handsome. Now you're no monument in the way of beauty yourself, dear Slayer, and yet you wouldn't be so unreasonable as to become my enemy for just saying so. I'm as the good Lord made me, and I wish to be accounted no better nor any worse. Good looks I may not have, that is to say, to a degree that the light-minded and vain crave, but I hope I'm not altogether without some recommend in the way of good conduct. There's few nobler-looking men to be seen than yourself, hurry, and I know that I am not to expect any to turn their eyes on me when such a one as you can be gazed on. But I do not know that a hunter is less expert with the rifle, or less to be relied on for food because he doesn't wish to stop at every shining spring he may meet to study his own countenance in the water. Here Harry burst into a fit of loud laughter, for while he was too reckless to care much about his own manifest physical superiority, he was well aware of it, and like most men who derive an advantage from the accidents of birth or nature, he was apt to think complacently on the subject whenever it happened across his mind. No, no, dear Slayer, you're no beauty as you will own yourself if you'll look over the side of the canoe, he cried. Jude will say that to your face if you start her, for apart her tongue isn't to be found in any gal's head, in or out of the settlements, if you provoke her to use it. My advice to you is never to aggravate Judith, though you may tell anything to Hetty and she'll take it as meek as a lamb. No, Jude will be just as like as not to tell you her opinion concerning your looks. And if she does hurry, she will tell me no more than you have said already. You're not thickening up about a small remark, I hope, dear Slayer, when no harm is meant. You are not a beauty as you must know. And why shouldn't friends tell each other these little trifles? If you was handsome or ever liked to be, I'd be one of the first to tell you of it. And that ought to content you. Now, if Jude was to tell me that I'm as ugly as a sinner, I'd take it as a sort of obligation and try not to believe her. It's easy for them that nature has favored to just about such matters hurry, though it is sometimes hard for others. I'll not deny, but I've had my cravings toward good looks. Yes, I have. But then I've always been able to get them down by considering how many I've known with fair outsides who have had nothing to boast of inwardly. I'll not deny hurry that I often wish I'd been created more comely to the eye, and more like such a one as yourself in them particulars. But then I get the feeling, under, by remembering how much better off I am in a great many respects than some fellow mortals. I might have been born lame, and unfet even for a squirrel hunt, or blind, which would have made me a burden on myself as well as on my friends, or without hearing, which would have totally unqualified me for ever campaigning or scouting, which I look forward to as part of a man's duty in troublesome times. Yes, yes, it's not pleasant I will allow to see them that's more comely, and more sought-hatter, and honored than yourself. But it may all be born if a man looks the evil in the face, and don't mistake his gifts and his obligations. Hurry, in the main, was a good-hearted as well as good-natured fellow. And the self-abasement of his companion completely got the better of the passing feeling of personal vanity. He regretted the illusion he had made to the other's appearance, and endeavored to express as much, though it was done in the uncouth manner that belonged to the habits and opinions of the frontier. I meant no harm, dear Slayer, he answered, in a deprecating manner, and hope you'll forget what I've said. If you're not downright handsome, you have a certain look that says plainer than any words that all's right within. Then you set no value by looks, and will the sooner forgive any little slight to your appearance. I will not say that Jude will greatly admire you, for that might raise hopes that would only breed disappointment. But there's heady now, would be just as likely to find satisfaction in looking at you as in looking at any other man. Then you're altogether too grave and considerate like to care much about Judith. For, though the gall is uncommon, she is so general in her admiration that a man need not be exalted because she happens to smile. I sometimes think the hussy loves herself better than she does anything else, breathe in. If she did hurry, she'd do no more, I'm afeared, than most queens on their thrones and ladies in the towns, answered dear slayer, smiling and turning back towards his companion with every trace of feeling banished from his honest-looking and frank countenance. I never yet knowed even a Delaware of whom you might not say that much. But here is the end of the long point you mentioned, and the Rat's Cove can't be far off. This point, instead of thrusting itself forward, like all the others, ran in a line with the main shore of the lake, which here swept within it in a deep and retired bay, circling round south again at the distance of a quarter of a mile and crossed the valley, forming the southern termination of the water. In this bay, hurry felt almost certain of finding the ark, since, anchored behind the trees that covered the narrow strip of the point, it might have lain concealed from prying eyes an entire summer. So complete indeed was the cover in this spot that a boat hauled close to the beach within the point and near the bottom of the bay could, by any possibility, be seen from only one direction, and that was from a densely wooded shore within the sweep of the water, where strangers would be little apt to go. We shall soon see the ark, said hurry, as the canoe glided round the extremity of the point where the water was so deep as actually to appear black. He loves to burrow up among the rushes, and we shall be in his nest in five minutes, although the old fellow may be off among the traps himself. March proved a false prophet. The canoe completely doubled the point, so as to enable the two travelers to command a view of the whole cove or bay, for it was more properly the last, and no object but those that nature had placed there became visible. The placid water swept round in a graceful curve, the rushes bent gently towards its surface, and the trees overhung it as usual, but all lay in the soothing and sublime solitude of a wilderness. The scene was such as a poet or an artist would have delighted in, but it had no charm for hurry Harry, who was burning with impatience to get a sight of his light-minded beauty. The motion of the canoe had been attended with little or no noise, the frontiermen habitually getting accustomed to caution in most of their movements, and it now lay on the glassy water appearing to float in air, partaking of the breathing stillness that seemed to pervade the entire scene. At this instant a dry stick was heard cracking on the narrow strip of land that concealed the bay from the open lake. Both the adventurers started, and each extended a hand towards his rifle, the weapon never being out of reach of the arm. "'Twas too heavy for any light creature,' whispered Harry, and it sounded like the tread of a man. "'Not so, not so,' returned Dear Slayer. "'Twas, as you say, too heavy for one, but it was too light for the other. Put your paddle in the water, and send the canoe in to that log. I'll land and cut off the creature's retreat up to the point, be it a mingle or be it a muskrat.' As hurry complied, Dear Slayer was soon on the shore advancing into the thicket with a moccasin foot, and a caution that prevented the least noise. In a minute he was in the center of the narrow strip of land, and moving slowly down towards its end, the bushes rendering extreme watchfulness necessary. Just as he reached the center of the thicket the dried twigs cracked again, and the noise was repeated at short intervals. As if some creature having life walked slowly towards the point. Harry heard these sounds also, and pushing the canoe off into the bay he seized his rifle to watch the result. A breathless minute succeeded, after which a noble buck walked out of the thicket, proceeded with a stately step to the sandy extremity of the point, and began to slake his thirst from the water of the lake. Harry hesitated an instant, then raising his rifle hastily to his shoulder he took sight and fired. The effect of this sudden interruption of the solemn stillness of such a scene was not its least striking peculiarity. The report of the weapon had the usual sharp short sound of the rifle, but when a few moments of silence had succeeded the sudden crack, during which the noise was floating in air across the water, it reached the rocks of the opposite mountain, where the vibrations accumulated and were rolled from cavity to cavity for miles along the hills, seeming to awaken the sleeping thunders of the woods. The buck merely shook his head at the report of the rifle and the whistling of the bullet. For never before had he come in contact with man, but the echoes of the hills awakened his distrust, and leaping forward with his four legs drawn under his body he fell at once into deep water, and began to swim towards the foot of the lake. Harry shouted and dashed forward in chase, and for one or two minutes the water foamed around the pursuer and the pursued. The former was dashing past the point when Deer Slayer appeared on the sand and signed him to return. It was inconsiderate to pull a trigger before we had reconnoitered the shore, and made certain that no enemies harbored near it, said the latter, as his companions slowly and reluctantly complied. This much I have learned from the Delaware's, in the way of schooling and traditions, even though I've never yet been on a war-path. And, moreover, venison can hardly be called in season now, and we do not want for food. They call me Deer Slayer, I'll own, and perhaps I desire the name, in the way of understanding the creature's habits, as well as for some certainty and the aim. But they can't accuse me of killing an animal when there was no occasion for the meat or the skin. I may be a slayer, it's true. But I'm no slaughterer. It was an awful mistake to miss that buck, exclaimed Harry, doffing his cap and running his fingers through his handsome but matted curls, as if he would loosen his tangled ideas by the process. I've not done so unhandy a thing since I was fifteen. Never lament it, as the creature's death could have done neither of us any good, and might have done us harm. Them echoes are more awful in my ears than your mistake, Harry, for they sound like the voice of nature calling out again a wasteful and unthinking action. You'll hear plenty of such calls if you tarry long in this quarter of the world, lad, return the other laughing. The echoes repeat pretty much all that is said or done in the glimmer glass, in this calm summer weather. If a paddle falls you hear of it sometimes, again and again, as if the hills were mocking your clumsiness, and a laugh, or a whistle, comes out of them pines when they're in the humor to speak, in a way to make you believe they can rally converse. So much the more reason for being prudent and silent. I do not think the enemy can have found their way into these hills yet, for I don't know what they are to gain by it, but all the Delaware's tell me that, as courage is a warrior's first virtue, so is prudence his second. One such call from the mountains is enough to let a whole tribe into the secret of our arrival. If it does no other good it will warn old Tom to put the pot over, and let him know visitors are at hand. Come, lad, get into the canoe, and we will hunt the ark up while there is yet day. Dear Slayer complied, and the canoe left the spot. Its head was turned diagonally across the lake, pointing towards the southeastern curvature of the sheet. In that direction the distance to the shore, or to the termination of the lake, on the course the two were now steering, was not quite a mile, and their progress being always swift it was fast lessening under the skillful but easy sweeps of the paddles. When about half way across a slight noise drew the eyes of the men towards the nearest land, and they saw that the buck was just emerging from the lake and waiting towards the beach. In a minute the noble animal shook the water from his flanks, gazed upward at the covering of trees, and, bounding against the bank, plunged into the forest. That creature goes off with gratitude in his heart, said Dear Slayer, for nature tells him that he has escaped a great danger. You ought to have some of the same feelings, hurry, to think your eye wasn't true, or that your hand was unsteady when no good could come of a shot that was intended unmeaningly rather than in reason. I deny the eye in the hand, cried March, with some heat. You've got a little character down among the Delaware's there, for quickness and certainty at a dear, but I should like to see you behind one of them pines, and a full-painted mingo behind another, each with a cocked rifle and a striving for the chance. Them's the situations, Nathaniel, to try the sight and the hand, for they begin with trying the nerves. I never look upon killing a creature as an exploit, but killing a savage is. The time will come to try your hand. Now we've got to blows again, and we shall soon know what a venison reputation can do in the field. I deny that either hand or eye was unsteady. It was all a miscalculation of the buck which stood still when he ought to have kept in motion, and so I shot ahead of him. Have it your own way, Harry. All I contend for is that it's lucky. I dare say I shall not pull upon a human mortal as steadily or with as light a heart as I pull upon a deer. Who's talking of mortals, or of human beings at all, dear Slayer? I put the matter to you on the supposition of an engine. I dare say any man would have his feelings when it's got to be life or death, again another human mortal. But there would be no such scruples in regard to an engine, nothing but the chance of his hitting you, or the chance of your hitting him. I look upon the red men to be quite as human as we are ourselves, Harry. They have their gifts and their religion. It's true. But that makes no difference in the end, when each will be judged according to his deeds and not according to his skin. That's downright missionary, and we'll find little favor up in this part of the country where the Moravians don't congregate. Now, skin makes the man. This is reason. Else how are people to judge of each other? The skin is put on over all in order when a creature, or a mortal, is fairly seen, you may know at once what to make of him. You know a bear from a hog by his skin, and a gray squirrel from a black. True, Harry, said the other looking back and smiling, nevertheless, they are both squirrels. Who denies it? But you'll not say that a red man and a white man are both engines? But I do say they are both men, men of different races and colors, and having different gifts and traditions. But in the main with the same nature, both have souls, and both will be held accountable for their deeds in this life. Harry was one of those theorists who believed in the inferiority of all the human race who were not white. His notions on the subject were not very clear, nor were his definitions at all well settled. But his opinions were nonetheless dogmatical or fierce. His conscience accused him of sundry, lawless acts against the Indians. And he had found it an exceedingly easy mode of quieting it by putting the whole family of red men, incontinently, without the category of human rights. Nothing angered him sooner than to deny his proposition, more especially if the denial were accompanied by a show of plausible argument, and he did not listen to his companion's remarks with much composure of either manner or feeling. You're a boy, dear Slayer, misled and misconsated by Delaware arts, and missionary ignorance, he exclaimed with his usual indifference to the forms of speech when excited. You may account yourself as a red-skins brother, but I hold him all to be animals, with nothing human about him but cunning. That they have, I'll allow. But so is a fox, or even a bear. I'm older than you, and have lived longer in the woods, or, for that matter, have lived always there, and have not to be told what an engine is or what he is not. If you wish to be considered a savage, you've only to say so, and I'll name you as such to Judith and the old man, and then we'll see how you'll like your welcome. Here hurry's imagination did his temper some service, since by conjuring up the reception his semi-aquatic acquaintance would be likely to bestow on one thus introduced, he burst into a hearty fit of laughter. Dear Slayer too well knew the uselessness of attempting to convince such a being of anything against his prejudices, to feel a desire to undertake the task. And he was not sorry that the approach of the canoe to the southeastern curve of the lake gave a new direction to his ideas. They were now, indeed, quite near the place that March had pointed out for the position of the outlet, and both began to look for it with a curiosity that was increased by the expectation of the ark. It may strike the reader as a little singular, that the place where a stream of any size passed through banks that had an elevation of some twenty feet, should be a matter of doubt with men who could not now have been more than two hundred yards distant from the precise spot. It will be recollected, however, that the trees and bushes here, as elsewhere, fairly overhung the water, making such a fringe to the lake as to conceal any little variations from its general outline. I've not been down at this end of the lake these two summers, said Hurry, standing up in the canoe. The better to look about him. I, there's the rock, showing its chin above the water, and I know that the river begins in its neighborhood. The men now plied the paddles again, and they were presently within a few yards of the rock, floating towards it, though their efforts were suspended. This rock was not large being merely some five or six feet high, only half of which elevation rose above the lake. The incessant washing of the water for centuries had so rounded its summit, that it resembled a large beehive in shape, its form being more than usually regular and even. Hurry remarked as they floated slowly past, that this rock was well known to all the Indians in that part of the country, and that they were in the practice of using it as a mark to designate the place of meeting, when separated by their hunts and marches. And here is the river, dear Slayer, he continued, though so shut in by trees and bushes as to look more like an and-bush than the outlet of such a sheet as the glimmer-class. Hurry had not badly described the place, which did truly seem to be a stream lying in ambush. The high banks might have been a hundred feet asunder, but on the western side a small bit of lowland extended so far forward as to diminish the breadth of the stream to half that width. As the bushes hung in the water beneath and pines that had the stature of church sepals rose in tall columns above, all inclining towards the light until their branches intermingled, the eye at a little distance could not easily detect any opening in the shore to mark the egress of the water. In the forest above no traces of this outlet were to be seen from the lake, the hole presenting the same connected and seemingly interminable carpet of leaves. As the canoe slowly advanced, sucked in by the current, it entered beneath an arch of trees, through which the light from the heavens struggled by casual openings, faintly relieving the gloom beneath. This is a natural ambush, half-whispered hurry, as if he felt that the place was devoted to secrecy and watchfulness. Depend on it, old Tom has burrowed with the arch somewhere in this quarter. We will drop down with the current a short distance and ferret him out. This seems no place for a vessel of any size, returned the other. It appears to me that we shall have hardly room enough for the canoe. Hurry laughed at the suggestion, and as it soon appeared with reason, for the fringe of bushes immediately on the shore of the lake was no sooner past than the adventurers found themselves in a narrow stream of a sufficient depth of limpid water with a strong current and a canopy of leaves upheld by arches composed of the limbs of hoary trees. Bushes lined the shores, as usual, but they left sufficient space between them to admit the passage of anything that did not exceed twenty feet in width, and to allow of a perspective ahead of eight or ten times that distance. Neither of our two adventurers used his paddle, except to keep the light bark in the center of the current, but both watched each turning of the stream, of which there were two or three within the first hundred yards, with jealous vigilance. Turn after turn, however, was past, and the canoe had dropped down with the current some little distance, when hurry caught a bush and arrested its movement so suddenly and silently as to denote some unusual motive for the act. Dear Slayer laid his hand on the stock of his rifle as soon as he noted this proceeding, but it was quite as much with a hunter's habit as from any feeling of alarm. There the old fellow is! whispered hurry, pointing with a finger and laughing heartily, though he carefully avoided making a noise, rattling it away, just as I supposed, up to his knees in the mud and water, looking to the traps and the bait. But for the life of me I can see nothing of the ark, though I'll bet every skin I take this season Jude isn't trusting her pretty little feet in the neighborhood of that black mud. The gal's more likely to be braiding her hair by the side of some spring where she can see her own good looks and collect scornful feelings against us men. You overjudge young women, yes you do, hurry, who is often be think them of their failings as they do of their perfections. I dare to say this Judith now is no such admirer of herself, and no such scornor of our sex as you seem to think, and that she is quite as likely to be sowing her father in the house wherever that may be as he is to be sowing her among the traps. It's a pleasure to hear truth from a man's tongue if it be only once in a girl's life. Quite a pleasant, rich, and yet soft female voice. So near the canoe is to make both the listeners As for you, Master Hurry, fair words are so apt to choke you that I no longer expect to hear them from your mouth, the last you uttered sticking in your throat and coming near to death, but I'm glad to see you keep better society than formerly, and that they who know how to esteem and treat women are not ashamed to journey in your company. As this was said, a singularly handsome and youthful female face was thrust through an opening in the leaves, within reach of Dear Slayer's paddle. Its owner smiled graciously on the young man, and the frown that she cast on Hurry, though simulated and pettish, had the effect to render her beauty more striking, by exhibiting the play of an expressive but capricious countenance, one that seemed to change from the soft to the severe, the mirthful to the reproving, with facility and indifference. A second look explained the nature of the surprise. Unwittingly the men had dropped alongside of the ark, which had been purposely concealed in bushes cut and arranged for the purpose, and Judith Hutter had merely pushed aside the leaves that lay before a window in order to show her face and speak to them.