University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

While the chase was occurring on the lake,
Miss Temple and her companion pursued their walk
with the activity of youth. Male attendants, on
such excursions, were thought to be altogether unnecessary,
for none were ever known, there, to offer
an insult to a female who respected the dignity
of her own sex. After the embarrassment,
that had been created by their parting discourse
with Edwards, had dissipated itself, the girls maintained
a conversation that was as innocent and
cheerful as themselves.

The path they had taken led them but a short
distance above the hut of Leather-stocking, and
there was a point in the road which commanded
a birds-eye view of the sequestered spot.

From a feeling, that might have been natural, but
must have been powerful, neither of the maidens,
in their frequent and confidential dialogues, had
ever trusted herself to utter one syllable concerning
the equivocal situation in which the young man, who
was now so intimately associated with them, had been
found. If Judge Temple had deemed it prudent

to make any inquiries on the subject, he had also
thought it proper to keep the answers to himself;
though it was so common an occurrence to find
the well-educated youth of the eastern states, in
every stage of their career to wealth, that the simple
circumstance of his intelligence, connected
with his poverty, would not, at that day, and in
that country, have excited any very powerful curiosity.
With his breeding it might have been
different; but the youth himself had so effectually
guarded against any surprise on this subject, by
his cold, and even in some cases, rude deportment,
that when his manners seemed to soften by
time, the Judge, if he thought about it at all,
would have been most likely to imagine that the
improvement was the result of his late association.
But women are always more alive to such subjects
than men; and what the abstraction of the
father had overlooked, the observation of the
daughter had easily detected. In the thousand
little courtesies of polished life, she had early discovered
that Edwards was not wanting, though
his gentleness was so often crossed by marks of
what she conceived to be fierce and uncontrollable
passions. It may, perhaps, be unnecessary to
tell the reader that Louisa Grant never reasoned
so much after the fashions of the world. The
gentle girl, however, had her own thoughts on the
subject, and, like others, she drew her own conclusions.

“I would give all my other secrets, Louisa,”
exclaimed Miss Temple, laughing, and shaking
back her dark locks, with a look of childish simplicity
that her intelligent face seldom expressed,
“to be mistress of all that those rude logs have
heard and witnessed.”

They were both looking at the secluded hut,

at the instant, and Miss Grant raised her mild
eyes, as she answered—

“I am sure they would tell nothing to the disadvantage
of Mr. Edwards.”

“Perhaps not; but they might tell who he is.”

“Why, dear Miss Temple, we know all that already,”
returned the other; “I have heard it all
very rationally explained by your cousin”—

“The executive chief!” interrupted Elizabeth—
“yes, yes, he can explain any thing. His ingenuity
will one day discover the philosopher's stone.
But what did he say?”

“Say!” echoed Louisa, with a look of surprise;
“why every thing that seemed to me to be satisfactory;
and I have believed it to be true. He
said that Natty Bumppo had lived most of his life
in the woods, and among the Indians, by which
means he had formed an acquaintance with old
John, the Delaware chief.”

“Indeed! that was quite a matter of fact tale
for cousin Dickon. What came next?”

“I believe he accounted for their close intimacy,
by some story about the Leather-stocking saving
the life of John in a battle.”

“Nothing more likely,” said Elizabeth, a little
impatiently; “but what is all this to the purpose?”

“Nay, Elizabeth, you must bear with my ignorance,
and I will repeat all that I remember to
have overheard; for the dialogue was between my
father and the Sheriff, so lately as the last time they
met. He then added, that the kings of England
used to keep gentlemen as agents among the different
tribes of Indians, and sometimes officers in
the army, who frequently passed half their lives on
the edge of the wilderness.”

“Told with a wonderful historical accuracy!
And did he end there?”

“Oh! no—then he said that these agents seldom
married; and—and—they must have been
wicked men, Elizabeth! but then he said—that—
that”—

“Never mind,” said Miss Temple, blushing and
smiling, though so slightly that both were unheeded
by her companion—“skip all that.”

“Well, then he said that they often took great
pride in the education of their children, whom
they frequently sent to England, and even to the
colleges; and this is the way that he accounts for
the liberal manner in which Mr. Edwards has
been taught; for he acknowledges that he knows
almost as much as himself, or your father—or even
mine.”

“Quite a climax in learning!” cried the heiress—“commencing
with the last, I suppose. And
so he made Mohegan the grand uncle or grandfather
of Oliver Edwards.”

“You have heard him yourself, then?” said
Louisa.

“Often; but not on this subject. Mr. Richard
Jones, you know, dear, has a theory for every
thing; but has he one which will explain the reason
why that hut is the only habitation within fifty
miles of us, whose door is not open to every person
that may choose to lift its latch?”

“I have never heard him say any thing on this
subject,” returned the clergyman's daughter; “but
I suppose that, as they are poor, they very naturally
are anxious to keep the little that they honestly
own It is sometimes dangerous to be rich,
Miss Temple; but you cannot know how hard it
is to be very, very poor.”

“Nor you neither, I trust, Louisa; at least I
should hope, that in this land of abundance, no
minister of the church could be left to absolute
suffering.”

“There cannot be actual misery,” returned the
other, in a low and humble tone, “where there is
a dependence on our Maker; but there may be
such suffering as will cause the heart to ache.”

“But not you—not you,” said the impetuous
Elizabeth—“not you, dear girl; you have never
known the misery that is connected with poverty.”

“Ah! Miss Temple, you little understand the
troubles of this life, I believe. My father has
spent many years as a missionary, in the new
countries, where his people were poor, and frequently
we have been without bread; unable to
buy, and ashamed to beg, because we would not
disgrace his sacred calling. But how often have I
seen him leave his home, where the sick and the
hungry felt, when he left them, that they had lost
their only earthly friend, to ride on a duty which
could not be neglected for domestic evils. Oh!
how hard it must be, to preach consolation to
others, when your own heart is bursting with anguish!”

“But it is all over now!” exclaimed Elizabeth,
“your father's income must now be equal to his
wants—it must be—it shall be”—

“It is,” replied Louisa, dropping her head on
her bosom to conceal the tears which flowed in
spite of her gentle Christianity, “for there are
none left to be supplied but me.”

The turn the conversation had taken drove
from the minds of the young maidens all other
thoughts but those of holy charity, and Elizabeth
folded her friend in her arms, who gave vent
to her momentary grief in audible sobs. When
this burst of emotion had subsided, Louisa raised
her mild countenance, and they continued their
walk in silence.

By this time they had gained the summit of the
mountain, where they left the highway, and pursued

their course, under the shade of the stately
trees that crowned the eminence. The day was
becoming warm, and the girls plunged more
deeply into the forest, as they found its invigorating
coolness agreeably contrasted to the excessive
heat they had experienced in their ascent. The
conversation, as if by mutual consent, was entirely
changed to the little incidents and scenes of
their walk, and every tall pine, and every shrub
or flower, called forth some simple expression of
admiration.

In this manner they proceeded along the margin
of the precipice, catching occasional glimpses
of the placid Otsego, or pausing to listen to the
rattling of wheels and the sounds of hammers, that
rose from the valley, to mingle the signs of men
with the scenes of nature, when Elizabeth suddenly
started, and exclaimed—

“Listen! there are the cries of a child on this
mountain! is there a clearing near us? or can
some little one have strayed from its parents?”

“Such things frequently happen,” returned
Louisa. “Let us follow the sounds; it may be
a wanderer starving on the hill.”

Urged by this consideration, the females pursued
the low, mournful sounds, that proceeded
from the forest, with quick and impatient steps.
More than once, the ardent Elizabeth was on the
point of announcing that she saw the sufferer,
when Louisa caught her by the arm, and pointing
behind them, cried—

“Look at the dog!”

Brave had been their companion, from the
time the voice of his young mistress lured him
from his kennel, to the present moment. His
advanced age had long before deprived him of his
activity; and when his companions stopped to
view the scenery, or to add to their bouquets,

the mastiff would lay his huge frame on the
ground, and await their movements, with his eyes
closed, and a listlessness in his air that ill accorded
with the character of a protector. But when,
aroused by this cry from Louisa, Miss Temple
turned, she saw the dog with his eyes keenly set
on some distant object, his head bent near the
ground, and his hair actually rising on his body,
either through fright or anger. It was most probably
the latter, for he was growling in a low
key, and occasionally showing his teeth, in a manner
that would have terrified his mistress, had she
not so well known his good qualities.

“Brave!” she said, “be quiet, Brave! what
do you see, fellow!”

At the sounds of her voice, the rage of the mastiff,
instead of being at all diminished, was very
sensibly increased. He stalked in front of the
ladies, and seated himself at the feet of his mistress,
growling louder than before. and occasionally
giving vent to his ire by a short, surly barking.

“What does he see?” said Elizabeth, “there
must be some animal in sight.”

Hearing no answer from her companion, Miss
Temple turned her head, and beheld Louisa,
standing with her face whitened to the colour of
death, and her finger pointing upward, with a sort
of flickering, convulsed motion. The quick eye
of Elizabeth glanced in the direction indicated by
her friend, where she saw the fierce front and
glaring eyes of a female panther, fixed on them in
horrid malignity, and threatening instant destruction.

“Let us fly!” exclaimed Elizabeth, grasping
the arm of Louisa, whose form yielded like melting
snow, and sunk lifeless to the earth.

There was not a single feeling in the temperament

of Elizabeth Temple, that could prompt her
to desert a companion in such an extremity; and
she fell on her knees, by the side of the inanimate
Louisa, tearing from the person of her friend,
with an instinctive readiness, such parts of her
dress as might obstruct her respiration, and encouraging
their only safeguard, the dog, at the
same time, by the sounds of her voice.

“Courage, Brave!” she cried, her own tones
beginning to tremble, “courage, courage, good
Brave.”

A quarter-grown cub, that had hitherto been
unseen, now appeared, dropping from the branches
of a sapling that grew under the shade of the
beech which held its dam. This ignorant, but vitious
creature, approached the dog, imitating the
actions and sounds of its parent, but exhibiting a
strange mixture of the playfulness of a kitten with
the ferocity of its race. Standing on its hind legs,
it would rend the bark of a tree with its fore paws,
and play all the antics of a cat, for a moment; and
then, by lashing itself with its tail, growling, and
scratching the earth, it would attempt the manifestations
of anger that rendered its parent so
terrific.

All this time Brave stood firm and undaunted,
his short tail erect, his body drawn backward on
its haunches, and his eyes following the movements
of both dam and cub. At every gambol played
by the latter, it approached nigher to the dog,
the growling of the three becoming more horrid
at each moment, until the younger beast overleap-ing
its intended bound, fell directly before the
mastiff. There was a moment of fearful cries and
struggles, but they ended almost as soon as commenced,
by the cub appearing in the air, hurled
from the jaws of Brave, with a violence that sent

it against a tree so forcibly, as to render it completely
senseless.

Elizabeth witnessed the short struggle, and her
blood was warming with the triumph of the dog,
when she saw the form of the old panther in the
air, springing twenty feet from the branch of the
beech to the back of the mastiff. No words of
ours can describe the fury of the conflict that
followed. It was a confused struggle on the
dried leaves, accompanied by loud and terrific
cries Miss Temple continued on her knees,
bending over the form of Louisa, her eyes fixed
on the animals, with an interest so horrid, and yet
so intense, that she almost forgot her own stake in
the result. So rapid and vigorous were the bounds
of the inhabitant of the forest, that its active
frame seemed constantly in the air, while the dog
nobly faced his foe, at each successive leap.
When the panther lighted on the shoulders of the
mastiff, which was its constant aim, old Brave,
though torn with her talons, and stained with his
own blood, that already flowed from a dozen
wounds, would shake off his furious foe, like a
feather, and rearing on his hind legs, rush to the
fray again, with his jaws distended, and a dauntless
eye. But age, and his pampered life, greatly
disqualified the noble mastiff for such a struggle.
In every thing but courage, he was only the vestige
of what he had once been. A higher bound
than ever, raised the wary and furious beast far
beyond the reach of the dog, who was making a
desperate but fruitless dash at her, from which she
alighted in a favourable position, on the back of
her aged foe. For a single moment, only, could
the panther remain there, the great strength of the
dog returning with a convulsive effort. But Elizabeth
saw, as Brave fastened his teeth in the side
of his enemy, that the collar of brass around his

neck, which had been glittering throughout the
fray, was of the colour of blood, and directly, that
his frame was sinking to the earth, where it soon
lay prostrate and helpless. Several mighty efforts
of the wild-cat to extricate herself from the
jaws of the dog, followed, but they were fruitless,
until the mastiff turned on his back, his lips collapsed,
and his teeth loosened; when the short
convulsions and stillness that succeeded, announced
the death of poor Brave.

Elizabeth now lay wholly at the mercy of the
beast. There is said to be something in the front
of the image of the Maker, that daunts the hearts
of the inferior beings of his creation; and it
would seem that some such power, in the present
instance, suspended the threatened blow. The eyes
of the monster and the kneeling maiden met, for an
instant, when the former stooped to examine her
fallen foe; next to scent her luckless cub. From
the latter examination it turned, however, with
its eyes apparently emitting flashes of fire, its tail
lashing its sides furiously, and its claws projecting
for inches from its broad feet.

Miss Temple did not, or could not move. Her
hands were clasped in the attitude of prayer, but
her eyes were still drawn to her terrible enemy;
her cheeks were blanched to the whiteness of marble,
and her lips were slightly separated with horror.
The moment seemed now to have arrived
for the fatal termination, and the beautiful figure
of Elizabeth was bowing meekly to the stroke,
when a rustling of leaves from behind seemed
rather to mock the organs, than to meet her ears.

“Hist! hist!” said a low voice—“stoop lower,
gal; your bunnet hides the creater's head.”

It was rather the yielding of nature than a compliance
with this unexpected order, that caused

the head of our heroine to sink on her bosom;
when she heard the report of the rifle, the whizzing
of the bullet, and the enraged cries of the
beast, who was rolling over on the earth, biting
its own flesh, and tearing the twigs and branches
within its reach. At the next instant the form of
the Leather stocking rushed by her, and he called
aloud—

“Come in, Hector, come in, you old fool; 'tis
a hard-lived animal, and may jump ag'in.”

Natty maintained his position in front of the
maidens, most fearlessly, notwithstanding the violent
bounds and threatening aspect of the wounded
panther, which gave several indications of returning
strength and ferocity, until his rifle was
again loaded, when he stepped up to the enraged
animal, and, placing the muzzle close to its head,
every spark of life was extinguished by the discharge.

The death of her terrible enemy appeared to
Elizabeth like a resurrection from her own grave.
There was an elasticity in the mind of our heroine,
that rose to meet the pressure of instant
danger, and the more direct to the senses her apprehensions
came, the more her nature had struggled
to overcome them. But still she was woman.
Had she been left to herself, in her late extremity,
she would probably have used her faculties to the
utmost, and with discretion, in protecting her person,
but encumbered with her inanimate friend,
retreat was a thing not to be attempted.—
Notwithstanding the fearful aspect of her foe, the
eye of Elizabeth had never shrunk from its gaze,
and long after the event, her thoughts would recur
to her passing sensations, and the sweetness of her
midnight sleep would be disturbed, as her active
fancy conjured in dreams, the most trifling movements

of savage fury, that the beast had exhibited
in its moment of power.

We shall leave the reader to imagine the restoration
of Louisa's senses, and the expressions of
gratitude which fell from the young women. The
former was effected by a little water, that was
brought from one of the thousand springs of those
mountains, in the cap of the Leather-stocking; and
the latter were uttered with all the warmth that
might be expected from the character of Elizabeth.
Natty received her vehement protestations
of gratitude, with a simple expression of good
will, and with indulgence for her present excitement,
but with a carelessness that showed how little
he thought of the service he had rendered.

“Well, well,” he said, “be it so, gal; let
it be so, if you wish it—we'll talk the thing
over another time; but I'm sore afeard you'll find
Mr. Oliver a better companion than an old hunter,
like me. Come, come—let us get into the road,
for you've had tirror enough to make you wish
yourself in your father's house ag'in.”

This was uttered as they were proceeding, at a
pace that was adapted to the weakness of Louisa,
towards the highway; on reaching which the ladies
separated from their guide, declaring themselves
equal to the remainder of their walk
without his assistance, and feeling encouraged
by the sight of the village, which lay beneath
their feet, like a picture, with its limpid lake
in front, the winding stream along its margin, and
its hundred chimneys of whitened bricks.

The reader need not be told the nature of the
emotions, which two youthful, ingenuous, and
well-educated girls would experience, at their
escape from a death so horrid as the one which
had impended over them, while they pursued
their way in silence along the track on the

side of the mountain; nor how deep were their
mental thanks to that Power which had given
them their existence, and which had not deserted
them in their extremity; neither how often they
pressed each other's arms, as the assurance of their
present safety came, like a healing balm, athwart
their troubled spirits, when their thoughts were
recurring to the recent moments of horror.

Leather-stocking remained on the hill, gazing
after their retiring figures, until they were hid by
a bend in the road, when he whistled in his dogs,
and, shouldering his rifle, he returned into the
forest.

“Well, it was a skeary thing to the young creaters,”
said Natty, while he retrod the path towards
the slain. “It might frighten an older woman,
to see a she-painter so near her, with a dead
eub by its side. I wonder if I had aimed at the
varmint's eye, if I shouldn't have touched the life
sooner than in the forehead? but they are hard-lived
animals, and it was a good shot, consid'ring
that I could see nothing but the head and peak of
its tail. Hah! who goes there?”

“How goes it, Natty?” said Mr. Doolittle,
stepping out of the bushes, with a motion that was
a good deal accelerated by the sight of the rifle,
that was already lowered in his direction. “What!
shooting this warm day! mind, old man, the law
don't get hold on you.”

“The law, Squire! I have shook hands with
the law these forty year,” returned Natty; “for
what has a man who lives in the wilderness to do
with the ways of the law?”

“Not much, maybe,” said Hiram; “but you
sometimes trade in ven'son. I s'pose you know,
Leather-stocking, that there is an act passed to
lay a fine of five pounds currency, or twelve dollars
and fifty cents, by decimals, on every man

who kills a deer betwixt January and August.
The Judge had a great hand in getting the law
through.”

“I can believe it,” returned the old hunter; “I
can believe that, or any thing, of a man who carries
on as he does in the country.”

“Yes, the law is quite positive, and the Judge
is bent on putting it in force—five pounds penalty.
I thought I heerd your hounds out on the scent of
so'thing this morning: I didn't know but they
might get you in difficulty.”

“They know their manners too well,” said
Natty, carelessly. “And how much goes to the
state's evidence, Squire?”

“How much!” repeated Hiram, quailing under
the honest, but sharp look of the hunter—“the informer
gets half, I—I b'lieve;—yes, I guess it's
half. But there's blood on your sleeve, man;—
you haven't been shooting any thing this morning?”

“I have, though,” said the hunter, nodding his
head significantly to the other, “and a good shot
I made of it.”

“He-e-m!” ejaculated the magistrate; “and
where is the game? I s'pose it's of a good nater,
for your dogs won't hunt any thing that isn't
choish.”

“They'll hunt any thing I tell them to, Squire,”
cried Natty, favouring the other with his laugh.
“They'll hunt you, if I say so. He-e-e-re,
he-e-e-re, Hector—he-e-e-re, slut—come this
a-way, pups—come this a-way—come hither.”

“Oh! I've always heern a good character of
the dogs,” returned Mr. Doolittle, quickening his
pace by raising each leg in rapid succession, as
the hounds scented around his person. “And
where is the game, Leather-stocking?”

During this dialogue, the speakers had been

walking at a very fast gait, and Natty swung the
end of his rifle round, pointing through the bushes,
and replied—

“There lays one. How do you like such
meat?”

“This!” exclaimed Hiram, “why this is Judge
Temple's dog Brave. Take kear, Leather-stocking,
and don't make an inimy of the Judge. I
hope you haven't harmed the animal?”

“Look for yourself, Mr. Doolittle,” said Natty,
drawing his knife from his girdle, and wiping it,
in a knowing manner, once or twice across his garment
of buck-skin; “does his throat look as if I
had cut it with this knife?”

“It is dreadfully tore! it's an awful wownd—
no knife never did this deed. Who could have
done it?”

“That painter behind you, Squire—look, there's
two of them.”

“Painters!” echoed Hiram, whirling on his
heel, with an agility that would have done credit
to a dancing master; “where's a painter?”

“Be easy, man,” said Natty; “there's two of
the vinimous things; but the dog finished one, and
I have fastened the other's jaws for her; so you
needn't look so skeared, Squire; they won't hurt
you.”

“And where's the deer?” cried Hiram, staring
about him with a bewildered air.

“Anan! deer!” repeated Natty.

“Sartain, an't there ven'son here, or didn't you
kill a buck?”

“What! when the law forbids the thing, Squire!”
said the old hunter. “I hope there's no law ag'in
killing the painters.”

“No; there's a bounty on the scalps—but—
will your dogs hunt painters, Natty?”

“Any thing;—didn't I tell you they'd hunt a
man? He-e-re, he-e-re, pups”—

“Oh! Yes, yes, I remember. Well, they are
strange dogs, I must say—I am quite in a wonderment.”

Natty had seated himself on the ground, and
having laid the grim head of his late ferocious enemy
in his lap, was drawing his knife with a practised
hand, around the ears, which he tore from
the head of the beast in such a manner as to preserve
their connexion, when he answered—

“What at, Squire? did you never see a painter's
scalp afore? Come, you be a magistrate,
I wish you'd make me out an order for the
bounty.”

“The bounty!” repeated Hiram, holding the
ears on the end of his finger, for a moment, as if
uncertain how to proceed. “Well, let us go
down to your hut, where you can take the oath,
and I will write out the order. I s'pose you have
a bible? all the law wants is the four evangelists
and the Lord's prayer.”

“I rather guess not,” said Natty, a little coldly;
“not such a bible as the law needs.”

“Oh! there's but one sort of bible, at least
that's good in law,” returned the magistrate; “and
yourn will do as well as another's. Come, the
carcasses are worth nothing, man; let us go down
and take the oath.”

“Softly, softly, Squire,” said the hunter, lifting
his trophies very deliberately from the ground,
and shouldering his rifle; “why do you want an
oath at all, for a thing that your own eyes has
seen? won't you believe yourself, that another
man must swear to a fact that you know to be
true? You seen me scalp the creaters, and if I must
swear to it, it shall be before Judge Temple, who
needs an oath.”

“But we have no pen or paper here, Leather-stocking;
we must go to the hut for them, or how
can I write the order?”

Natty turned his simple features on the cunning
magistrate with another of his laughs, as he
said—

“And what should I be doing with such scholars
tools? I want no pens or paper, not knowing
the use of 'ither; and so I keep none. No, no,
I'll bring the scalps into the village, Squire, and
you can make out the order on one of your law-books,
and it will be all the better for it. The
deuce take this leather on the neck of the dog, it
will strangle the old fool. Can you lend me a
knife, Squire?”

Hiram, who seemed particularly anxious to be
on good terms with his companion, unhesitatingly
complied. Natty cut the thong from the neck of
the hound, and, as he returned the knife to its owner,
carelessly remarked—

“'Tis a good bit of steel, and has cut such leather
as this very same before now, I dare to say.”

“Do you mean to charge me with letting your
hounds loose!” exclaimed Hiram, with a consciousness
that disarmed his caution.

“Loose!” repeated the hunter—“I let them
loose myself. I always let them loose before I
leave the hut.”

The ungovernable amazement with which Mr.
Doolittle listened to this falsehood, would have
betrayed his agency in the liberation of the dogs,
had Natty wanted any further confirmation; and
the coolness and management of the old man now
disappeared in open indignation.

“Look you here, Mr. Doolittle,” he said, striking
the breech of his rifle violently on the ground;
“what there is in the wigwam of a poor man like
me, that one like you can crave, I don't know; but

this I tell you to your face, that you never shall
put a foot under the roof of my cabin with my
consent, and that if you harbour round the spot
as you have done lately, you may meet with treatment
that you won't over and above relish.”

“And let me tell you, Mr. Bumppo,” said Hiram,
retreating, however, with a quick step, “that
I know you've broke the law, and that I'm a magistrate,
and will make you feel it too, before you
are a day older.”

“That for you and your law too,” cried Natty,
snapping his fingers at the justice of the peace
—“away with you, you varmint, before the divil
tempts me to give you your desarts. Take kear,
if I ever catch your prowling face in the woods
ag'in, that I don't shoot it for an owl.”

There is something at all times commanding in
honest indignation, and Hiram did not stay to
provoke the wrath of the old hunter to extremities.
When the intruder was out of sight, Natty
proceeded to the hut, where he found all quiet's as
the grave. He fastened his dogs, and tapping at
the door, which was opened by Edwards, asked—

“Is all safe, lad?”

“Every thing,” returned the youth. “Some
one attempted the lock, but it was too strong for
him.”

“I know the creater,” said Natty, but he'll not
trust himself within reach of my rifle ag'in very
soon, for I'll—What more was uttered by the
Leather-stocking, in his vexation, was rendered
inaudible by the closing of the door of the cabin.