ee it. Floating Tom is some such king of
this region, as the wolf that prowls through the woods is king of the
forest. A beast with two tails is well worth two such scalps!"

"But my brother has another beast?--He will give two"--holding up as
many fingers, "for old father?"

"Floating Tom is no father of mine, but he'll fare none the worse for
that. As for giving two beasts for his scalp, and each beast with two
tails, it is quite beyond reason. Think yourself well off, Mingo, if you
make a much worse trade."

By this time the self-command of Rivenoak had got the better of his
wonder, and he began to fall back on his usual habits of cunning, in
order to drive the best bargain he could. It would be useless to relate
more than the substance of the desultory dialogue that followed, in
which the Indian manifested no little management, in endeavoring
to recover the ground lost under the influence of surprise. He even
affected to doubt whether any original for the image of the beast
existed, and asserted that the oldest Indian had never heard a tradition
of any such animal. Little did either of them imagine at the time that
long ere a century elapsed, the progress of civilization would bring
even much more extraordinary and rare animals into that region, as
curiosities to be gazed at by the curious, and that the particular
beast, about which the disputants contended, would be seen laving its
sides and swimming in the very sheet of water, on which they had met.

[The Otsego is a favorite place for the caravan keepers to let
their elephants bathe. The writer has seen two at a time, since the
publication of this book, swimming about in company.]

As is not uncommon on such occasions, one of the parties got a little
warm in the course of the discussion, for Deerslayer met all the
arguments and prevarication of his subtle opponent with his own cool
directness of manner, and unmoved love of truth. What an elephant was he
knew little better than the savage, but he perfectly understood that
the carved pieces of ivory must have some such value in the eyes of an
Iroquois as a bag of gold or a package of beaver skins would in those of
a trader. Under the circumstances, therefore, he felt it to be
prudent not to concede too much at first, since there existed a
nearly unconquerable obstacle to making the transfers, even after the
contracting parties had actually agreed upon the terms. Keeping this
difficulty in view, he held the ext