erest in every deer you can knock over within five miles of
his lake."

"Does game abound!" suddenly demanded the other, who paid but little
attention to March's raillery.

"It has the country to itself. Scarce a trigger is pulled on it; and as
for the trappers, this is not a region they greatly frequent. I ought
not to be so much here myself, but Jude pulls one way, while the beaver
pulls another. More than a hundred Spanish dollars has that creatur'
cost me the last two seasons, and yet I could not forego the wish to
look upon her face once more."

"Do the redmen often visit this lake, Hurry?" continued Deerslayer,
pursuing his own train of thought.

"Why, they come and go; sometimes in parties, and sometimes singly. The
country seems to belong to no native tribe in particular; and so it has
fallen into the hands of the Hutter tribe. The old man tells me that
some sharp ones have been wheedling the Mohawks for an Indian deed,
in order to get a title out of the colony; but nothing has come of it,
seeing that no one heavy enough for such a trade has yet meddled
with the matter. The hunters have a good life-lease still of this
wilderness."

"So much the better, so much the better, Hurry. If I was King of
England, the man that felled one of these trees without good occasion
for the timber, should be banished to a desarted and forlorn region, in
which no fourfooted animal ever trod. Right glad am I that Chingachgook
app'inted our meeting on this lake, for hitherto eye of mine never
looked on such a glorious spectacle."

"That's because you've kept so much among the Delawares, in whose
country there are no lakes. Now, farther north and farther west these
bits of water abound; and you're young, and may yet live to see 'em.
But though there be other lakes, Deerslayer, there's no other Judith
Hutter!"

At this remark his companion smiled, and then he dropped his paddle into
the water, as if in consideration of a lover's haste. Both now pulled
vigorously until they got within a hundred yards of the "castle," as
Hurry familiarly called the house of Hutter, when they again ceased
paddling; the admirer of Judith restraining his impatience the more
readily, as he perceived that the building was untenanted, at the
moment. This new pause was to enable Deerslayer to survey the singular
edifice, which was of a construction so novel as to merit a particular
description.

Muskrat Castle, as the house had been facetiously named