The Pioneers

As the speaker concluded he drew his bare hand across the bottom of his nose, and again opened his enormous mouth with a kind of inward laugh.

“The gun scatters well, Natty, And it has killed a deer before now”, said the traveller, smiling good-humoredly. “One barrel was charged with buckshot, but the other was loaded for birds only. Here are two hurts; one through the neck, and the other directly through the heart. It is by no means certain, Natty, but I gave him one of the two

“Let who will kill him.” said the hunter, rather surily.

“I suppose the creature is to be eaten.” So saying, he drew a large knife from a leathern sheath, which was stuck through his girdle, or sash, and cut the throat of the animal, “If there are two balls through the deer, I would ask if there weren’t two rifles fired – besides, who ever saw such a ragged hole from a smooth-bore as this through the neck? And you will own yourself, Judge, that the buck fell at the last shot, which was sent from a truer and a younger hand than your’n or mine either; but, for my part, although I am a poor man I can live without the venison, but I don’t love to give up my lawful dues in a free country. Though, for the matter of that, might often makes right here, as well as in the old country, for what I can see.”

An air of sullen dissatisfaction pervaded the manner of the hunter during the whole of his speech; yet he thought it prudent to utter the close of the sentence in such an undertone as to leave nothing audible but the grumbling sounds of his voice.

“Nay, Natty”, rejoined the traveller, with undisturbed good-humor, “it is for the honor that I contend. A few dollars will pay for the venison; but what will requite me for the lost honor of a buck’s tail in my cap? Think, Natty, how I should triumph over that quizzing dog, Dick Jones, who has failed seven times already this season, and has only brought in one woodchuck and a few gray squirrels.”

“Ah! The game is becoming hard to find, indeed, Judge, with your clearings and betterments”, said the old hunter, with a kind of compelled resignation. “The time has been when I have shot thirteen deer without counting the fa’ns standing in the door of my own hut; and for bear’s meat, if one wanted a ham or so, he had only to watch a-nights, and he could shoot one by moonlight, through the cracks of the logs, no fear of his oversleeping himself neither, for the howling of the wolves was sartin to keep his eyes open. There’s old Hector” – patting with affection a tall hound of black and yellow spots, with white belly and legs, that just then came in on the scent, accompanied by the slut he had mentioned; “see where the wolves bit his throat, the night I druv them from the venison that was smoking on the chimney top – that dog is more to be trusted than many a Christian man; for he never forgets a friend, and loves the hand that gives him bread”,

There was a peculiarity in the manner of the hunter that attracted the notice of the young female, who had been a close and interested observer of his appearance and equipments, from the moment he came into view. He was tall, and so meagre as to make him seem above even the six feet that he actually stood in his stockings. On his head, which was thinly covered with lank, sandy hair, he wore a cap made of fox-skin, resembling in shape the one we have already described, although much inferior in finish and ornaments. His face was skinny and thin al most to emaciation; but yet it bore no signs of disease – on the contrary, it had every indication of the most robust and enduring health. The cold and exposure had, together, given it a color of uniform red. His gray eyes were glancing under a pair of shaggy brows, that over hung them in long hairs of gray mingled with their natural hue; his scraggy neck was bare, and burnt to the same tint with his face; though a small part of a shirt-collar, made of the country check, was to be seen above the overdress he wore. A kind of coat, made of dressed deer-skin, with the hair on, was belted close to his lank body by a girdle of colored worsted. On his feet were deerskin moccasins, ornamented with porcupines’ quills, after the manner of the Indians, and his limbs were guarded with long leggings of the same material as the moccasins, which, gartering over the knees of his tarnished buckskin breeches, had obtained for him among the settlers the nickname of Leather-Stocking. Over his left shoulder was slung a belt of deerskin, from which depended an enormous ox-horn, so thinly scraped as to discover the powder it contained. The larger end was fitted ingeniously and securely with a wooden bottom, and the other was stopped tight by a little plug. A leathern pouch hung before him, from which, as he concluded his last speech, he took a small measure, and, filling it accurately with powder, he commenced reloading the rifle, which as its butt rested on the snow before him reached nearly to the top of his fox-skin cap.

The traveller had been closely examining the wounds during these movements, and now, without heeding the ill-humor of the hunter’s manner, he exclaimed:

“I would fain establish a right, Natty, to the honor of this death; and surely if the hit in the neck be mine it is enough; for the shot in the heart was unnecessary – what we call an act of supererogation, Leather-Stocking.”

“You may call it by what larned name you please, Judge”, said the hunter, throwing his rifle across his left arm, and knocking up a brass lid in the breech, from which he took a small piece of greased leather and, wrapping a bail in it, forced them down by main strength on the powder, where he continued to pound them while speaking. “It’s far easier to call names than to shoot a buck on the spring; but the creatur came by his end from a younger hand than either your’n or mine, as I said before.”

“What say you, my friend”, cried the traveller, turning pleasantly to Natty’s companion; “shall we toss up this dollar for the honor, and you keep the silver if you lose; what say you, friend?”

“That I killed the deer”, answered the young man, with a little haughtiness, as he leaned on another long rifle similar to that of Natty.

“Here are two to one, indeed”, replied the Judge with a smile; “I am outvoted – overruled, as we say on the bench. There is Aggy, he can’t vote, being a slave; and Bess is a minor – so I must even make the best of it. But you’ll send me the venison; and the deuce is in it, but I make a good story about its death.”

“The meat is none of mine to sell”, said Leather-Stocking, adopting a little of his companion’s hauteur; “for my part, I have known animals travel days with shots in the neck, and I’m none of them who’ll rob a man of his rightful dues.”

“You are tenacious of your rights, this cold evening, Natty”, returned the Judge with unconquerable good-nature; “but what say you, young man; will three dollars pay you for the buck?”

“First let us determine the question of right to the satisfaction of us both”, said the youth firmly but respect fully, and with a pronunciation and language vastly superior to his appearance: “with how many shot did you load your gun?”

“With five, sir”, said the Judge, a little struck with the other’s manner; “are they not enough to slay a buck like this?”

“One would do it; but”, moving to the tree from be hind which he had appeared, “you know, sir, you fired in this direction – here are four of the bullets in the tree.”

The Judge examined the fresh marks in the bark of the pine, and, shaking his head, said with a laugh:

“You are making out the case against yourself, my young advocate; where is the fifth?”

“Here”, said the youth, throwing aside the rough over coat that he wore, and exhibiting a hole in his under-garment, through which large drops of blood were oozing.

“Good God!” exclaimed the Judge, with horror; “have I been trifling here about an empty distinction, and a fellow-creature suffering from my hands without a murmur? But hasten – quick – get into my sleigh – it is but a mile to the village, where surgical aid can be obtained – all shall be done at my expense, and thou shalt live with me until thy wound is healed, ay, and forever afterward.”

“I thank you for your good intention, but I must decline your offer. I have a friend who would be uneasy were he to hear that I am hurt and away from him. The injury is but slight, and the bullet has missed the bones; but I believe, sir, you will now admit me title to the venison.”

“Admit it!” repeated the agitated Judge; “I here give thee a right to shoot deer, or bears, or anything thou pleasest in my woods, forever. Leather-Stocking is the only other man that I have granted the same privilege to; and the time is coming when it will be of value. But I buy your deer – here, this bill will pay thee, both for thy shot and my own.”

The old hunter gathered his tall person up into an air of pride during this dialogue, but he waited until the other had done speaking.

“There’s them living who say that Nathaniel Bumppo’s right to shoot on these hills is of older date than Marmaduke Temple’s right to forbid him”, he said. “But if there’s a law about it at all, though who ever heard of a law that a man shouldn’t kill deer where he pleased! – but if there is a law at all, it should be to keep people from the use of smooth-bores. A body never knows where his lead will fly, when he pulls the trigger of one of them uncertain firearms.”

Without attending to the soliloquy of Natty, the youth bowed his head silently to the offer of the bank-note, and replied:

“Excuse me: I have need of the venison.”

“But this will buy you many deer”, said the Judge; “take it, I entreat you;” and, lowering his voice to a whisper, he added, “It is for a hundred dollars.”

For an instant only the youth seemed to hesitate, and then, blushing even through the high color that the cold had given to his cheeks, as if with inward shame at his own weakness, he again declined the offer.

During this scene the female arose, and regardless of the cold air, she threw back the hood which concealed her features, and now spoke, with great earnestness.

“Surely, surely – young man – sir – you would not pain my father so much as to have him think that he leaves a fellow-creature in this wilderness whom his own hand has injured. I entreat you will go with us, and receive medical aid.”

Whether his wound became more painful, or there was something irresistible in the voice and manner of the fair pleader for her father’s feelings, we know not; but the distance of the young mans manner was sensibly softened by this appeal, and he stood in apparent doubt, as if reluctant to comply with and yet unwilling to refuse her request. The Judge, for such being his office must in future be his title, watched with no little interest the display of this singular contention in the feelings of the youth; and, advancing, kindly took his hand, and, as he pulled him gently toward the sleigh, urged him to enter it.

“There is no human aid nearer than Templeton”, he said, “and the hut of Natty is full three miles from this – come, come, my young friend, go with us, and let the new doctor look to this shoulder of thine. Here is Natty will take the tidings of thy welfare to thy friend; and shouldst thou require it, thou shalt return home in the morning.” The young man succeeded in extricating his hand from the warm grasp of the Judge, but he continued to gaze on the face of the female, who, regardless of the cold, was still standing with her fine features exposed, which expressed feeling that eloquently seconded the request of her father. Leather-Stocking stood, in the mean time, leaning upon his long rifle, with his head turned a little to one side, as if engaged in sagacious musing; when, having apparently satisfied his doubts, by revolving the subject in his mind, he broke silence. “It may be best to go, lad, after all; for, if the shot hangs under the skin, my hand is getting too old to be cutting into human flesh, as I once used to, Though some thirty years agone, in the old war, when I was out under Sir William, I travelled seventy miles alone in the howling wilderness, with a rifle bullet in my thigh, and then cut it out with my own jack-knife. Old Indian John knows the time well. I met him with a party of the Delawares, on the trail of the Iroquois, who had been down and taken five scalps on the Schoharie. But I made a mark on the red-skin that I’ll warrant he’ll carry to his grave! I took him on the posteerum, saving the lady’s presence, as he got up from the ambushment, and rattled three buckshot into his naked hide, so close that you might have laid a broad joe upon them all” – here Natty stretched out his long neck, and straightened his body, as he opened his mouth, which exposed a single tusk of yellow bone, while his eyes, his face, even his whole frame seemed to laugh, although no sound was emitted except a kind of thick hissing, as he inhaled his breath in quavers. “I had lost my bullet-mould in crossing the Oneida outlet, and had to make shift with the buckshot; but the rifle was true, and didn’t scatter like your two-legged thing there, Judge, which don’t do, I find, to hunt in company with.”

Natty’s apology to the delicacy of the young lady was unnecessary, for, while he was speaking, she was too much employed in helping her father to remove certain articles of baggage to hear him. Unable to resist the kind urgency of the travellers any longer, the youth, though still with an unaccountable reluctance, suffered himself to be persuaded to enter the sleigh. The black, with the aid of his master, threw the buck across the baggage and entering the vehicle themselves, the Judge invited the hunter to do so likewise.

“ No, no”, said the old roan, shaking his head; “I have work to do at home this Christmas eve – drive on with the boy, and let your doctor look to the shoulder; though if he will only cut out the shot, I have yarbs that will heal the wound quicker than all his foreign ‘intments.” He turned, and was about to move off, when, suddenly recollecting himself, he again faced the party, and added: “If you see anything of Indian John, about the foot of the lake, you had better take him with you, and let him lend the doctor a hand; for, old as he is, he is curious at cuts and bruises, and it’s likelier than not he’ll be in with brooms to sweep your Christmas ha’arths.”

“Stop, stop”, cried the youth, catching the arm of the black as he prepared to urge his horses forward; “Natty – you need say nothing of the shot, nor of where I am going – remember, Natty, as you love me.” “Trust old Leather-Stocking”, returned the hunter significantly; “he hasn’t lived fifty years in the wilderness, and not larnt from the savages how to hold his tongue – trust to me, lad; and remember old Indian John.”

“And, Natty”, said the youth eagerly, still holding the black by the arm. “I will just get the shot extracted, and bring you up to-night a quarter of the buck for the Christmas dinner.”

He was interrupted by the hunter, who held up his finger with an expressive gesture for silence. He then moved softly along the margin of the road, keeping his eyes steadfastly fixed on the branches of a pine. When he had obtained such a position as he wished, he stopped, and, cocking his rifle, threw one leg far behind him, and stretching his left arm to its utmost extent along the barrel of his piece, he began slowly to raise its muzzle in a line with the straight trunk of the tree. The eyes of the group in the sleigh naturally preceded the movement of the rifle, and they soon discovered the object of Natty’s aim. On a small dead branch of the pine, which, at the distance of seventy feet from the ground, shot out horizontally, immediately beneath the living members of the tree, sat a bird, that in the vulgar language of the country was indiscriminately called a pheasant or a partridge. In size, it was but little smaller than a common barn-yard fowl. The baying of the dogs, and the conversation that had passed near the root of the tree on which it was perched, had alarmed the bird, which was now drawn up near the body of the pine, with a head and neck so erect as to form nearly a straight line with its legs. As soon as the rifle bore on the victim, Natty drew his trigger, and the partridge fell from its height with a force that buried it in the snow.

“Lie down, you old villain”, exclaimed Leather-Stocking, shaking his ramrod at Hector as he bounded toward the foot of the tree, “ lie down, I say.” The dog obeyed, and Natty proceeded with great rapidity, though with the nicest accuracy, to reload his piece. When this was ended, he took up his game, and, showing it to the party without a head, he cried: “ Here is a tidbit for an old man’s Christmas – never mind the venison, boy, and remember Indian John; his yarbs are better than all the foreign ‘intments. Here, Judge”, holding up the bird again, “do you think a smooth-bore would pick game off their roost, and not ruffle a feather?” The old man gave another of his remarkable laughs, which partook so largely of exultation, mirth, and irony, and, shaking his head, he turned, with his rifle at a trail, and moved into the forest with steps that were between a walk and a trot. At each movement he made his body lowered several inches, his knees yielding with an inclination inward; but, as the sleigh turned at a bend in the road, the youth cast his eyes in quest of his old companion, and he saw that he was already nearly concealed by the trunks of the tree; while his dogs were following quietly in his footsteps, occasionally scenting the deer track, that they seemed to know instinctively was now of no further use to them. Another jerk was given to the sleigh, and Leather-Stocking was hid from view.