“Oh! I have always heard a good character of the dogs,” returned Mr. Doolittle, quickening his pace by raising each leg in rapid succession, as the hounds scented around his person.
“And where is the game, Leather-Stocking?”
During this dialogue, the speakers had been walking at a very fast gait, and Natty swung the end of his rifle round, pointing through the bushes, and replied:
“There lies one.
How do you like such meat?”
“This!” exclaimed Hiram; “why, this is Judge Temple’s dog Brave.
Take care, Leather-Stocking, and don’t make an enemy of the Judge.
I hope you haven’t harmed the animal?”
“Look for yourself, Mr. Doolittle,” said Natty, drawing his knife from his girdle, and wiping it in a knowing manner, once or twice across his garment of buckskin; “does his throat look as if I had cut it with this knife?”
“It is dreadfully torn! it’s an awful wound—no knife ever did this deed.
Who could have done it?”
“The painters behind you, squire.”
“Painters!” echoed Hiram, whirling on his heel with an agility that would have done credit to a dancing’ master.
“Be easy, man,” said Natty; “there’s two of the venomous things; but the dog finished one, and I have fastened the other’s jaws for her; so don’t be frightened, squire; they won’t hurt you.”
“And where’s the deer?” cried Hiram, staring about him with a bewildered air.
“Anan? deer!” repeated Natty.
“Sartain; an’t there venison here, or didn’t you kill a buck?”
“What! when the law forbids the thing, squire!” said the old hunter,
“I hope there’s no law agin’ killing the painters.”
“No! there’s a bounty on the scalps—but—will your dogs hunt painters, Natty?”
“Anything; didn’t I tell you they would hunt a man?
He-e-re, he-e-re, pups—”
“Yes, yes, I remember. Well, they are strange dogs, I must say—I am quite in a wonderment.”
Natty had seated himself on the ground, and having laid the grim head of his late ferocious enemy in his lap, was drawing his knife with a practiced hand around the ears, which he tore from the head of the beast in such a manner as to preserve their connection, when he answered; “What at, squire? did you never see a painter’s scalp afore?
Come, you are a magistrate, I wish you’d make me out an order for the bounty.”
“The bounty!” repeated Hiram, holding the ears on the end of his finger for a moment, as if uncertain how to proceed.
“Well, let us go down to your hut, where you can take the oath, and I will write out the order, I sup pose you have a Bible?
All the law wants is the four evangelists and the Lord’s prayer.”
“I keep no books,” said Natty, a little coldly; “not such a Bible as the law needs.”
“Oh! there’s but one sort of Bible that’s good in law,” returned the magistrate, “and your’n will do as well as another’s.
Come, the carcasses are worth nothing, man; let us go down and take the oath.”
“Softly, softly, squire,” said the hunter, lifting his trophies very deliberately from the ground, and shouldering his rifle; “why do you want an oath at all, for a thing that your own eyes has seen?
Won’t you believe yourself, that another man must swear to a fact that you know to be true?
You have seen me scalp the creatur’s, and if I must swear to it, it shall be before Judge Temple, who needs an oath.”
“But we have no pen or paper here, Leather-Stocking; we must go to the hut for them, or how can I write the order?”
Natty turned his simple features on the cunning magistrate with another of his laughs, as he said:
“And what should I be doing with scholars’ tools? I want no pens or paper, not knowing the use of either; and I keep none.
No, no, I’ll bring the scalps into the village, squire, and you can make out the order on one of your law-books, and it will be all the better for it.
The deuce take this leather on the neck of the dog, it will strangle the old fool.
Can you lend me a knife, squire?”
Hiram, who seemed particularly anxious to be on good terms with his companion, unhesitatingly complied.
Natty cut the thong from the neck of the hound, and, as he returned the knife to its owner, carelessly remarked:
“‘Tis a good bit of steel, and has cut such leather as this very same, before now, I dare say.”
“Do you mean to charge me with letting your hounds loose?” exclaimed Hiram, with a consciousness that disarmed his caution.
“Loose!” repeated the hunter—“I let them loose myself. I always let them loose before I leave the hut.”
The ungovernable amazement with which Mr. Doolittle listened to this falsehood would have betrayed his agency in the liberation of the dogs, had Natty wanted any further confirmation; and the coolness and management of the old man now disappeared in open indignation.
“Look you here, Mr. Doolittle,” he said, striking the breech of his rifle violently on the ground; “what there is in the wigwam of a poor man like me, that one like you can crave, I don’t know; but this I tell you to your face, that you never shall put foot under the roof of my cabin with my consent, and that, if you harbor round the spot as you have done lately, you may meet with treatment that you will little relish.”
“And let me tell you, Mr. Bumppo,” said Hiram, retreating, however, with a quick step, “that I know you’ve broke the law, and that I’m a magistrate, and will make you feel it too, before you are a day older.”
“That for you and your law, too,” cried Natty, snap ping his fingers at the justice of the peace; “away with you, you varmint, before the devil tempts me to give you your desarts.
Take care, if I ever catch your prowling face in the woods agin, that I don’t shoot it for an owl.”