Judith allowed herself to be supported to a seat, swallowed a mouthful
of the water that the Delaware offered her in a gourd, and, after a
violent fit of trembling that seemed ready to shake her fine frame to
dissolution, she burst into tears.

"The pain must be borne, poor Judith--yes, it must be borne," said
Deerslayer, soothingly, "though I am far from wishing you not to weep;
for weeping often lightens galish feelin's. Where can she be hurt,
Sarpent? I see no signs of blood, nor any rent of skin or garments?"

"I am uninjured, Deerslayer," stammered the girl through her tears.
"It's fright--nothing more, I do assure you, and, God be praised! no
one, I find, has been harmed by the accident."

"This is extr'ornary!" exclaimed the unsuspecting and simple minded
hunter--"I thought, Judith, you'd been above settlement weaknesses,
and that you was a gal not to be frightened by the sound of a bursting
we'pon--No--I didn't think you so skeary! Hetty might well have been
startled; but you've too much judgment and reason to be frightened
when the danger's all over. They're pleasant to the eye, chief, and
changeful, but very unsartain in their feelin's!"

Shame kept Judith silent. There had been no acting in her agitation, but
all had fairly proceeded from sudden and uncontrollable alarm--an alarm
that she found almost as inexplicable to herself, as it proved to be
to her companions. Wiping away the traces of tears, however, she smiled
again, and was soon able to join in the laugh at her own folly.

"And you, Deerslayer," she at length succeeded in saying--"are you,
indeed, altogether unhurt? It seems almost miraculous that a pistol
should have burst in your hand, and you escape without the loss of a
limb, if not of life!"

"Such wonders ar'n't oncommon, at all, among worn out arms. The first
rifle they gave me play'd the same trick, and yet I liv'd through it,
though not as onharmless as I've got out of this affair. Thomas Hutter
is master of one pistol less than he was this morning, but, as it
happened in trying to sarve him, there's no ground of complaint. Now,
draw near, and let us look farther into the inside of the chist."

Judith, by this time, had so far gotten the better of her agitation as
to resume her seat, and the examination went on. The next article that
offered was enveloped in cloth, and on opening it, it proved to be one
of the mathematical instruments that were then in use among seamen,
possessing