Both these frontiersmen were still young, Hurry having reached the age of six or eight and twenty, while Deerslayer 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 deer-skins, and had the usual signs of belonging to those who pass their time between the skirts of civilized society and the boundless forests. There was, notwithstanding, some attention to smartness and the picturesque in the arrangements of Deerslayer’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 his shot-pouch was decorated with wampum.
On the other hand, Hurry Harry, either from constitutional recklessness, or from a secret consciousness how little his appearance required artificial aids, wore everything in a careless, slovenly manner, as if he felt a noble scorn for the trifling accessories of dress and ornaments. Perhaps the peculiar effect of his fine form and great stature was increased rather than lessened, by this unstudied and disdainful air of indifference.
“Come, Deerslayer, fall to, and prove that you have a Delaware stomach, as you say you have had a Delaware edication,” cried Hurry, 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’ve 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 catamount,” returned the other, disposing himself to comply. “The Delawares have given me my name, not so much on account of a bold heart, as on account of a quick eye, and an actyve foot. There may not be any cowardyce in overcoming a deer, but sartain it is, there’s no great valor.”
“The Delawares themselves are no heroes,” muttered Hurry through his teeth, the mouth being too full to permit it to be fairly opened, “or they would never have allowed them loping vagabonds, the Mingos, to make them women.”
“That matter is not rightly understood — has never been rightly explained,” said Deerslayer earnestly, for he was as zealous a friend as his companion was dangerous as an enemy; “the Mengwe fill the woods with their lies, and misconstruct words and treaties. I have now lived ten years with the Delawares, and know them to be as manful as any other nation, when the proper time to strike comes.”
“Harkee, Master Deerslayer, 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 a title, it would seem, but did you ever hit anything human or intelligible: did you ever pull trigger on an inimy 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,” answered Deerslayer; “seeing that a fitting occasion never offered. The Delawares have been peaceable since my sojourn with ‘em, and I hold it to be onlawful to take the life of 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 am no trapper, Hurry,” returned the young man proudly: “I live by the rifle, a we’pon at which I will not turn my back on any man of my years, atween the Hudson and the St. Lawrence. I never offer a skin that has not a hole in its head besides them which natur’ made to see with or to breathe through.”
“Ay, ay, 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 a 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 there is one inimy 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 to-night, if you see occasion. I have a fri’nd waiting for me, who will think it no disgrace to consort with a fellow-creatur’ 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,” muttered Hurry to himself, in a way to show equally distrust and a 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 make their treaties, and to bury their hatchets. This rock have I often heard the Delawares mention, though lake and rock are equally strangers to me. The country is claimed by both Mingos and Mohicans, and is a sort of common territory to fish and hunt through, in time of peace, though what it may become in war-time, the Lord only knows!”
“Common territory” exclaimed Hurry, laughing aloud. “I should like to know what Floating Tom Hutter would say to that! He claims the lake as his own property, in vartue of fifteen years’ possession, and will not be likely to give it up to either Mingo or Delaware without a battle for it!”
“And what will the colony 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 ventur’, in their own persons, to look at the land they own.”
“That may do in other quarters of the colony, Deerslayer, but it will not do here. Not a human being, the Lord excepted, owns a foot of sile in this part of the country. Pen was never put to paper consarning either hill or valley hereaway, as I’ve heard old Tom say time and ag’in, 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 oncommon mortal; neither Mingo, Delaware, nor pale-face. His possession, too, has been long, by your tell, and altogether beyond frontier endurance. What’s the man’s history and natur’?”
“Why, as to old Tom’s human natur’, it is not much like other men’s human natur’, but more like a muskrat’s human natar’, seeing that he takes more to the ways of that animal than to the ways of any other fellow-creatur’. Some think he was a free liver on the salt water, in his youth, and a companion of a sartain Kidd, who was hanged for piracy, long afore 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 darters, in a very quiet and comfortable way, and wishes for no more.”
“Ay, he has darters, too; I’ve heard the Delawares, who’ve hunted this a way, 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.”
“Anan?”