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Have their round haunches gored.”

Shakespeare

HURRY HARRY THOUGHT MORE of the beauties of Judith Hutter than of those of the Glimmerglass 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, Hurry 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 Hurry, 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 thisaway, ’twill 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 Deerslayer, 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 ’arth, Deerslayer, to which them disquiet rogues don’t go? Where is the lake, or even the deer-lick, that the blackguards 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, sartainly, friend Hurry, though I’ve never been called on, as yet, to meet them, or any other mortal, on the warpath. 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 Delawares give me such an account of ‘em that I’ve pretty much set ’em 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 Deerslayer protested, and as they went paddling down the lake a hot discussion was maintained concerning the respective merits of the palefaces and the redskins. Hurry 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. Deerslayer, 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 sophisms 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 rushes on its prey 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, Deerslayer, that a Mingo is more than half devil,” cried Hurry, following up the discussion with an animation that touched closely on ferocity, “though you want to overpersuade me that the Delaware tribe is pretty much made up of angels. Now, I gainsay that proposal, consarning 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 ‘arth: white, black, and red. White is the highest color, and therefore the best man; black comes