g found out, don't, sooner or later, discolour its
water with blood."

"I hear no good character of 'em, sartainly, friend Hurry, though I've
never been called on, yet, to meet them, or any other mortal, on the
warpath. I dare to say that such a lovely spot as this, would not be
likely to be overlooked by such plunderers, for, though I've not been
in the way of quarreling with them tribes myself, the Delawares give
me such an account of 'em that I've pretty much set 'em down in my own
mind, as thorough miscreants."

"You may do that with a safe conscience, or for that matter, any other
savage you may happen to meet."

Here Deerslayer protested, and as they went paddling down the lake, a
hot discussion was maintained concerning the respective merits of
the pale-faces and the red-skins. Hurry had all the prejudices and
antipathies of a white hunter, who generally regards the Indian as a
sort of natural competitor, and not unfrequently as a natural enemy.
As a matter of course, he was loud, clamorous, dogmatical and not
very argumentative. Deerslayer, on the other hand, manifested a very
different temper, proving by the moderation of his language, the
fairness of his views, and the simplicity of his distinctions, that he
possessed every disposition to hear reason, a strong, innate desire to
do justice, and an ingenuousness that was singularly indisposed to have
recourse to sophism to maintain an argument; or to defend a prejudice.
Still he was not altogether free from the influence of the latter
feeling. This tyrant of the human mind, which ruses on it prey through
a thousand avenues, almost as soon as men begin to think and feel, and
which seldom relinquishes its iron sway until they cease to do
either, had made some impression on even the just propensities of this
individual, who probably offered in these particulars, a fair specimen
of what absence from bad example, the want of temptation to go wrong,
and native good feeling can render youth.

"You will allow, Deerslayer, that a Mingo is more than half devil,"
cried Hurry, following up the discussion with an animation that touched
closely on ferocity, "though you want to over-persuade me that the
Delaware tribe is pretty much made up of angels. Now, I gainsay that
proposal, consarning white men, even. All white men are not faultless,
and therefore all Indians can't be faultless. And so your argument is
out at the elbow in the start. But this is what I call reason. H