of this, and listen to the
advice of Deerslayer, who has a conscience; which is more than I can say
or think of Harry March."

Hutter now rose, and, entering the cabin, he compelled his daughters
to go into the adjoining room, when he secured both the doors, and
returned. Then he and Hurry pursued the subject; but, as the purport of
all that was material in this discourse will appear in the narrative,
it need not be related here in detail. The reader, however, can have
no difficulty in comprehending the morality that presided over their
conference. It was, in truth, that which, in some form or other, rules
most of the acts of men, and in which the controlling principle is that
one wrong will justify another. Their enemies paid for scalps, and this
was sufficient to justify the colony for retaliating. It is true, the
French used the same argument, a circumstance, as Hurry took occasion
to observe in answer to one of Deerslayer's objections, that proved its
truth, as mortal enemies would not be likely to have recourse to the
same reason unless it were a good one. But neither Hutter nor Hurry was
a man likely to stick at trifles in matters connected with the right of
the aborigines, since it is one of the consequences of aggression that
it hardens the conscience, as the only means of quieting it. In the
most peaceable state of the country, a species of warfare was carried on
between the Indians, especially those of the Canadas, and men of their
caste; and the moment an actual and recognized warfare existed, it was
regarded as the means of lawfully revenging a thousand wrongs, real
and imaginary. Then, again, there was some truth, and a good deal of
expediency, in the principle of retaliation, of which they both
availed themselves, in particular, to answer the objections of their
juster-minded and more scrupulous companion.

"You must fight a man with his own we'pons, Deerslayer," cried Hurry,
in his uncouth dialect, and in his dogmatical manner of disposing of all
oral propositions; "if he's f'erce you must be f'ercer; if he's stout
of heart, you must be stouter. This is the way to get the better of
Christian or savage: by keeping up to this trail, you'll get soonest to
the ind of your journey."

"That's not Moravian doctrine, which teaches that all are to be judged
according to their talents or l'arning; the Injin like an Injin; and the
white man like a white man. Some of their teachers say, that if you're
struck on th