The Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics) - James Fenimore Cooper [43]
“ ’Twas inconsiderate to pull a trigger afore we had reconnoitered the shore, and made sartain that no inimies harbored near it,” said the latter, as his companion slowly and reluctantly complied. “This much I have l’arned from the Delawares, in the way of schooling and traditions, even though I’ve never yet been on a warpath. And, moreover, venison can hardly be called in season now, and we do not want for food. They call me Deerslayer, I’ll own; and perhaps I desarve the name, in the way of understanding the creatur’s habits, as well as for sartainty in the aim; but they can’t accuse me of killing an animal when there is no occasion for the meat or the skin. I may be a slayer, it’s true, but I’m no slaughterer.”
“’Twas an awful mistake to miss that buck!” exclaimed Hurry, 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 onhandy a thing since I was fifteen.”
“Never lament it; the creatur’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, Hurry; for they sound like the voice of natur’ calling out ag’in a wasteful and onthinking action.”
“You’ll hear plenty of such calls, if you tarry long in this quarter of the world, lad,” returned the other, laughing. “The echoes repeat pretty much all that is said or done on the Glimmerglass, in this calm summer weather. If a paddle falls, you hear of it sometimes ag‘in and ag’in, 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 r’ally convarse.”
“So much the more reason for being prudent and silent. I do not think the inimy can have found their way into these hills yet, for I don’t know what they are to gain by it; but all the Delawares tell me, that as courage is a warrior’s first vartue, 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”
Deerslayer 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 skilful but easy sweeps of the paddles. When about halfway 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 wading towards the beach. In a minute the noble animal shook the water from his flanks, gazed upwards at the covering of trees, and, bounding against the bank, plunged into the forest.
“That creatur’ goes off with gratitude in his heart,” said Deerslayer, “for natur’ tells him he has escaped a great danger. You ought to have some of the same feelin’s, Hurry, to think your eye wasn’t truer—that your hand was onsteady, when no good could come of a shot that was intended onmeaningly, rather than in reason.”
“I deny the eye and the hand,” cried March, with some heat. “You’ve got a little character, down among the Delawares, there, for quickness and sartainty, at a deer; but I should like to see you behind one of them pines, and a full-painted Mingo behind another, each