The Leatherstocking Tales II

by James Fenimore Cooper

  “ ’Twas inconsiderate to pull a trigger, afore we had reconn’itred 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 war-path. 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 some 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, as 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 humour 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 do’nt 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 visiters 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 south-eastern 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 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 wading 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 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 was’n’t true, or 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 with a cock’d rifle and astriving for the chance! Them’s the situations, Nathaniel, to try the sight and the hand, for they begin with trying the narves. I never look upon killing a creatur’ as an explite, but killing a savage is. The time will come to try your hand, now we’ve got to blows ag’in, and we shall soon know what a ven’son repitation can do in the field. I deny that either hand or eye was onsteady; it was all a miscaculation on 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, Hurry; 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, Deerslayer? I put the matter to you on the suppersition of an Injin. I dare say any man would have his feelin’s when it got to be life, or death, ag’in another human mortal, but there would be no such scruples in regard to an Injin, nothing but the chance of his hitting you, or the chance of you hitting him.”

  “I look upon the red men to be quite as human as we are ourselves, Hurry. 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 will find little favor, up in this part of the country where the Moravians don’t congergate. 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 that when a creatur’, 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 grey squirrel from a black.”

  “True, Hurry,” 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 Injins?”

  “No; but I do say they are both men. Men of different races and colours, and having different gifts and traditions, but, in the main, with the same natur’s. Both have souls and both will be held accountable for their deeds in this life.”

  Hurry was one of those theorists who believed in the inferiority of all of 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 none the less 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, Deerslayer, mislead and misconsaited 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 skin’s brother, but I hold ’em all to be animals, with nothing human about ’em but cunning. That they have, I’ll allow; but so has 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 am not to be told what an Injin 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. Deerslayer too well knew the uselessness of attempting to convince such a being of any thing against his prejudices, to feel a desire to undertake the task, and he was not sorry that the approach of the canoe to the south eastern curve of the lake, gave a new direction to his ideas. They were now, indeed, quite near to 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 finding 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 genera
l 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.—“Ay—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 bee-hive 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 their place of meeting, when separated by their hunts and marches.

  “And here is the river, Deerslayer,” 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 Glimmerglass.”

  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 low land, 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 steeples, 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 whole 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 nat’ral and-bush,” half-whispered Hurry, as if he felt that the place was devoted to secrecy and watchfulness, “and, depend on it, old Tom has burrowed with the Ark, 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, “and it appears to me that we shall have hardly room enough for the canoe.”

  Hurry laughed at this suggestion, and, as it soon appeared with reason, for the fringe of bushes immediately on the shore of the lake was no sooner passed, 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 any thing 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 centre 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 passed, 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. Deerslayer 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. “ ’Ratting 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 is’n’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 ag’in us men.”

  “You over-judge young women, yes you do, Hurry, who as often bethink 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 scorner of our sex, as you seem to think; and that she is quite as likely to be sarving her father in the house, wherever that may be, as he is to be sarving 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,” cried a pleasant, rich, and yet soft female voice so near the canoe, as to make both the listeners start. “As for you, Master Hurry, fair words are so apt to choak 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 Deerslayer’s paddle. Its owner smiled graciously on the young man, and the frown that she then 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 along side 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.

  Chapter IV

  “And that timid fawn starts not with fear

  When I steal to her secret bower,

  And that young May violet to me is dear,

  And I visit the silent streamlet near,

  To look on the lovely flower.”

  —Bryant, “An Indian Story,” ll. 11–15.

  * * *

  THE ARK, as the floating habitation of the Hutters was generally called, was a very simple contrivance. A large flat, or scow, composed the buoyant part of the vessel, and, in its centre, occupying the whole of its breadth and about two thirds of its length, stood a low fabric, resembling the castle in construction, though made of materials so light as barely to be bulletproof. As the sides of the scow were a little higher than usual, and the interior of the cabin had no more elevation than was necessary for comfort, this unusual addition had neither a very clumsy, nor a very obtrusive appearance. It was, in short, little more than a modern canal boat, though more rudely constructed, of greater breadth than common, and bearing about it the signs of the wilderness, in its bark-covered posts and roof. The scow, however, had been put together with some skill, being comparatively light, for its strength, and sufficiently manageable. The cabin was divided into two apartments, one of which served for a parlor, and the sleeping-room of the father, and the other was appropriated to the uses of the daughters. A very simple arrangement sufficed for the kitchen, which was in one end of the scow, and removed from the cabin, standing in the open air; the Ark being altogether a summer habitation.

  The ‘and-bush’, as Hurry in his ignorance of English termed it, is quite as easily explained. In many parts of the lake and river, where the banks were steep and high, the smaller trees, and larger bushes, as has been already mentioned, fairly overhung the stream, their branches not unfrequently dipping into the water. In some instances they grew out in nearly horizontal lines, for thirty or forty feet. The water being uniformly deepest near the shores, where the banks were highest and the nearest to a perpendicular, Hutter had found no difficulty in letting the Ark drop under one of these covers, where it had been anchored with a view to conceal its position, security requiring some such precautions, in his view of the case. Once beneath the trees and bushes, a few stones fastened to the ends of the branches had caused them to bend sufficiently
to dip into the river, and a few severed bushes, properly disposed, did the rest. The reader has seen that this cover was so complete, as to deceive two men accustomed to the woods, and who were actually in search of those it concealed, a circumstance that will be easily understood by those who are familiar with the matted and wild luxuriance of a virgin American forest, more especially in a rich soil.

  The discovery of the Ark produced very different effects on our two adventurers. As soon as the canoe could be got round to the proper opening, Hurry leaped on board, and in a minute was closely engaged in a gay, and a sort of recriminating discourse with Judith, apparently forgetful of the existence of all the rest of the world. Not so with Deerslayer. He entered the Ark with a slow, cautious step, examining every arrangement of the cover, with curious and scrutinizing eyes. It is true, he cast one admiring glance at Judith, which was extorted by her brilliant and singular beauty, but even this could detain him but a single instant from the indulgence of his interest in Hutter’s contrivances. Step by step did he look into the construction of the singular abode, investigate its fastenings and strength, ascertain its means of defence, and make every inquiry that would be likely to occur to one whose thoughts dwelt principally on such expedients. Nor was the cover neglected. Of this he examined the whole minutely, his commendation escaping him more than once in audible comments. Frontier usages admitting of this familiarity, he passed through the rooms, as he had previously done at the ‘Castle’, and opening a door issued into the end of the scow opposite to that where he had left Hurry and Judith. Here he found the other sister, employed at some coarse needle-work, seated beneath the leafy canopy of the cover.