ual with selfish and vulgar men. "I heartily wish old
Hutter and I had scalped every creatur' in their camp, the night
we first landed with that capital object! Had you not held back,
Deerslayer, it might have been done, and then you wouldn't have found
yourself, at the last moment, in the desperate condition you mention."

"'Twould have been better had you said you wished you had never
attempted to do what it little becomes any white man's gifts to
undertake; in which case, not only might we have kept from coming to
blows, but Thomas Hutter would now have been living, and the hearts of
the savages would be less given to vengeance. The death of that young
woman, too, was on-called for, Henry March, and leaves a heavy load on
our names if not on our consciences!"

This was so apparent, and it seemed so obvious to Hurry himself, at the
moment, that he dashed his paddle into the water, and began to urge the
canoe towards the shore, as if bent only on running away from his own
lively remorse. His companion humoured this feverish desire for change,
and, in a minute or two, the bows of the boat grated lightly on the
shingle of the beach. To land, shoulder his pack and rifle, and to get
ready for his march occupied Hurry but an instant, and with a growling
adieu, he had already commenced his march, when a sudden twinge of
feeling brought him to a dead stop, and immediately after to the other's
side.

"You cannot mean to give yourself up ag'in to them murdering savages,
Deerslayer!" he said, quite as much in angry remonstrance, as with
generous feeling. "Twould be the act of a madman or a fool!"

"There's them that thinks it madness to keep their words, and there's
them that don't, Hurry Harry. You may be one of the first, but I'm one
of the last. No red-skin breathing shall have it in his power to say
that a Mingo minds his word more than a man of white blood and white
gifts, in any thing that consarns me. I'm out on a furlough, and if I've
strength and reason, I'll go in on a furlough afore noon to-morrow!"

"What's an Injin, or a word passed, or a furlough taken from creatur's
like them, that have neither souls, nor reason!"

"If they've got neither souls nor reason, you and I have both, Henry
March, and one is accountable for the other. This furlough is not, as
you seem to think, a matter altogether atween me and the Mingos, seeing
it is a solemn bargain made atween me and God. He who thinks that he
can say what he pl