"and wish the girls away. You see my situation, and I should
like to hear your opinions concerning what is best to be done. Three
times have I been burnt out already, but that was on the shore; and I've
considered myself as pretty safe ever since I got the castle built,
and the ark afloat. My other accidents, however, happened in peaceable
times, being nothing more than such flurries as a man must meet with, in
the woods; but this matter looks serious, and your ideas would greatly
relieve my mind."

"It's my notion, old Tom, that you, and your huts, and your traps, and
your whole possessions, hereaway, are in desperate jippardy," returned
the matter-of-fact Hurry, who saw no use in concealment. "Accordin' to
my idees of valie, they're altogether not worth half as much today as
they was yesterday, nor would I give more for 'em, taking the pay in
skins."

"Then I've children!" continued the father, making the allusion in a
way that it might have puzzled even an indifferent observer to say
was intended as a bait, or as an exclamation of paternal concern,
"daughters, as you know, Hurry, and good girls too, I may say, though I
am their father."

"A man may say anything, Master Hutter, particularly when pressed by
time and circumstances. You've darters, as you say, and one of them
hasn't her equal on the frontiers for good looks, whatever she may have
for good behavior. As for poor Hetty, she's Hetty Hutter, and that's as
much as one can say about the poor thing. Give me Jude, if her conduct
was only equal to her looks!"

"I see, Harry March, I can only count on you as a fair-weather friend;
and I suppose that your companion will be of the same way of thinking,"
returned the other, with a slight show of pride, that was not altogether
without dignity; "well, I must depend on Providence, which will not turn
a deaf ear, perhaps, to a father's prayers."

"If you've understood Hurry, here, to mean that he intends to desart
you," said Deerslayer, with an earnest simplicity that gave double
assurance of its truth, "I think you do him injustice, as I know you
do me, in supposing I would follow him, was he so ontrue-hearted as to
leave a family of his own color in such a strait as this. I've come on
this at take, Master Hutter, to rende'vous a fri'nd, and I only wish he
was here himself, as I make no doubt he will be at sunset tomorrow, when
you'd have another rifle to aid you; an inexper'enced one, I'll allow,
like my own, but