Happily, the lounging form of Billy Kirby met his eye, and Hiram, at all time fruitful in similar expedients, saw his way clear at once.
Jotham, who was associated in the whole business, and who had left the mountain in consequence of a summons from his coadjutor, but who failed, equally with Hiram, in the unfortunate particular of nerve, was directed to summon the wood-chopper to the dwelling of the magistrate.
When Billy appeared, he was very kindly invited to take the chair in which he had already seated himself, and was treated in all respects as if he were an equal.
“Judge Temple has set his heart on putting the deer law in force,” said Hiram, after the preliminary civilities were over, “and a complaint has been laid before him that a deer has been killed.
He has issued a search-warrant, and sent for me to get somebody to execute it.”
Kirby, who had no idea of being excluded from the deliberative part of any affair in which he was engaged, drew up his bushy head in a reflecting attitude, and after musing a moment, replied by asking a few questions,
“The sheriff has gone out of the way?”
“Not to be found.”
“And his deputy too?”
“Both gone on the skirts of the Patent.”
“But I saw the constable hobbling about town an hour ago.”
“Yes, yes,” said Hiram, with a coaxing smile and knowing nod, “but this business wants a man—not a cripple.”
“Why,” said Billy, laughing, “will the chap make fight?”
“He’s a little quarrelsome at times, and thinks he’s the best man in the country at rough and tumble.”
“I heard him brag once,” said Jotham, “that there wasn’t a man ‘twixt the Mohawk Flats and the Pennsylvany line that was his match at a close hug.”
“Did you?” exclaimed Kirby, raising his huge frame in his seat, like a lion stretching in his lair;
“I rather guess he never felt a Varmounter’s knuckles on his backbone-But who is the chap?”
“Why,” said Jotham, “it’s—”
“It’s agin’ law to tell,” interrupted Hiram, “unless you’ll qualify to sarve.
You’d be the very man to take him, Bill, and I’ll make out a special deputation in a minute, when you will get the fees.”
“What’s the fees?” said Kirby, laying his large hand on the leaves of a statute-book that Hiram had opened in order to give dignity to his office, which he turned over in his rough manner, as if he were reflecting on a subject about which he had, in truth, already decided; “will they pay a man for a broken head?”
“They’ll be something handsome,” said Hiram.
“Damn the fees,” said Billy, again laughing—“does the fellow think he’s the best wrestler in the county, though? what’s his inches?”
“He’s taller than you be,” said Jotham, “and one of the biggest—”
Talkers, he was about to add, but the impatience of Kirby interrupted him.
The wood-chopper had nothing fierce or even brutal in his appearance; the character of his expression was that of good-natured vanity. It was evident he prided himself on the powers of the physical man, like all who have nothing better to boast of; and, stretching out his broad hand, with the palm downward, he said, keeping his eyes fastened on his own bones and sinews:
“Come, give us a touch of the book.
I’ll swear, and you’ll see that I’m a man to keep my oath.”
Hiram did not give the wood-chopper time to change his mind, but the oath was administered without unnecessary delay. So soon as this preliminary was completed, the three worthies left the house, and proceeded by the nearest road toward the hut.
They had reached the bank of the lake, and were diverging from the route of the highway, before Kirby recollected that he was now entitled to the privilege of the initiated, and repeated his question as to the name of the offender,
“Which way, which way, squire?” exclaimed the hardy wood-chopper;
“I thought it was to search a house that you wanted me, not the woods.
There is nobody lives on this side of the lake, for six miles, unless you count the Leather-Stocking and old John for settlers.
Come, tell me the chap’s name, and I warrant me that I lead you to his clearing by a straighter path than this, for I know every sapling that grows within two miles of Templeton.”
“This is the way,” said Hiram, pointing forward and quickening his step, as if apprehensive that Kirby would desert, “and Bumppo is the man.”
Kirby stopped short, and looked from one of his companions to the other in astonishment.
He then burst into a loud laugh, and cried:
“Who?
Leather-Stocking!
He may brag of his aim and his rifle, for he has the best of both, as I will own myself, for sin’ he shot the pigeon I knock under to him; but for a wrestle! why, I would take the creatur’ between my finger and thumb, and tie him in a bow-knot around my neck for a Barcelony.
The man is seventy, and was never anything particular for strength.”
“He’s a deceiving man,” said Hiram, “like all the hunters; he is stronger than he seems; besides, he has his rifle.”
“That for his rifle!” cried Billy; “he’d no more hurt me with his rifle than he’d fly. He’s a harmless creatur’, and I must say that I think he has as good right to kill deer as any man on the Patent.
It’s his main support, and this is a free country, where a man is privileged to follow any calling he likes.”
“According to that doctrine,” said Jotham, “anybody may shoot a deer.”
“This is the man’s calling, I tell you,” returned Kirby, “and the law was never made for such as he.”
“The law was made for all,” observed Hiram, who began to think that the danger was likely to fall to his own share, notwithstanding his management; “and the law is particular in noticing parjury.”
“See here, Squire Doolittle,” said the reckless woodchopper; “I don’t care the valie of a beetlering for you and your parjury too.
But as I have come so far, I’ll go down and have a talk with the old man, and maybe we’ll fry a steak of the deer together.”
“Well, if you can get in peaceably, so much the better,” said the magistrate.