The Deerslayer

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This etext was produced by Stephen Kerr

The Deerslayer

by James Fenimore Cooper

Chapter I

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore.
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar :
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal"

Childe Harold.

On the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who
has travelled far and seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived long; and
the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest assumes the
aspect of antiquity. In no other way can we account for the venerable air
that is already gathering around American annals. When the mind reverts to
the earliest days of colonial history, the period seems remote and obscure,
the thousand changes that thicken along the links of recollections, throwing
back the origin of the nation to a day so distant as seemingly to reach the
mists of time; and yet four lives of ordinary duration would suffice to
transmit, from mouth to mouth, in the form of tradition, all that civilized
man has achieved within the limits of the republic. Altbough New York alone
possesses a population materially exceeding that of either of the four
smallest kingdoms of Europe, or materially exceeding that of the entire Swiss
Confederation, it is little more than two centuries since the Dutch commenced
their settlement, rescuing the region from the savage state. Thus, what
seems venerable by an accumulation of changes is reduced to familiarity when
we come seriously to consider it solely in connection with time.

This glance into the perspective of the past will prepare the reader to look
at the pictures we are about to sketch, with less surprise than he might
otherwise feel ; and a few additional explanations may carry him back in
imagination to the precise condition of society that we desire to delineate.
It is matter of history that the settlements on the eastern shores of the
Hudson, such as Claverack, Kinderhook, and even Poughkeepsie, were not
regarded as safe from Indian incursions a century since; and there is still
standing on the banks of the same river, and within musket-shot of the
wharves of Albany, a residence of a younger branch' of the Van Rensselaers,
that has loopholes constructed for defence against the same crafty enemy,
although it dates from a period scarcely so distant. Other similar memorials
of the infancy of the country are to be found, scattered through what is now
deemed the very centre of American civi2ization, affording the plainest
proofs that all we possess of security from invasion and hostile violence is
the growth of but little more than the time that is frequently fulfilled by a
single human life.

The incidents of this tale occurred between the years 1740 and I745, when the
settled portions of the colony of New York were confined to the four Atlantic
counties, a narrow belt of country on each side of the Hudson, extending from
its mouth to the falls near its head, and to a few advanced "neighborhoods"
on the Mohawk and the Schoharie. Broad belts of the virgin wilderness not
only reached the shores of the first river, but they even crossed it,
stretching away into New England, and affording forest covers to the
noiseless moccasin of the native warrior, as he trod the secret and bloody
war-path. A bird's-eye view of the whole region east of the Mississippi must
then have offered one vast expanse of woods, relieved by a comparatively
narrow fringe of cultivation along the sea, dotted by the glittering surfaces
of lakes, and intersected by the waving lines of river. In such a vast
picture of solemn solitude, the district of country we design to paint sinks
into insignificance, though we feel encouraged to proceed by the conviction
that, with slight and immaterial distinctions, he who succeeds in giving an
accurate idea of any portion of this wild region must necessarily convey a
tolerably correct notion of the whole.

Whatever may be the changes produced by man, the eternal round of the seasons
is unbroken. Summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, return in their
stated order with a sublime precision, affording to man one of the noblest of
all the occasions he enjoys of proving the high powers of his far-reaching
mind, in compassing the laws that control their exact uniformity, and in
calculating their never-ending revolutions. Centuries of summer suns had
warmed the tops of the same noble oaks and pines, sending their heats even to
the tenacious roots, when voices were heard calling to each other, in the
depths of a forest, of which the leafy surface lay bathed in the brilliant
light of a cloudless day in June, while the trunks of the trees rose in
gloomy grandeur in the shades beneath. The calls were in different tones,
evidently proceeding from two men who had lost their way, and were searching
in different directions for their path. At length a shout proclaimed
success, and presently a man of gigantic mould broke out of the tangled
labyrinth of a small swamp, emerging into an opening that appeared to have
been formed partly by the ravages of the wind, and partly by those of fire.
This little area, which afforded a good view of the sky, although it was
pretty well filled with dead trees, lay on the side of one of the high hills,
or low mountains, into which nearly the whole surface of the adjacent country
was broken.

4

"Here is room to breathe in! " exclaimed the liberated forester, as soon as
he found himself under a clear sky, shaking his huge frame like a mastiff
that has just escaped from a snowbank. "Hurrah! Deerslayer; here is daylight,
at last, and yonder is the lake."

These words were scarcely uttered when the second forester dashed aside the
bushes of the swamp, and appeared in the area. After making a hurried
adjustment of hisarms and disordered dress, he joined his companion, who had
already begun his disposition for a halt.

"Do you know this spot!" demanded the one called Deerslayer," or do you shout
at the sight of the sun? " " Both, lad, both; I know the spot, and am not
sorry to see so useful a fri'nd as the sun. Now we have got the p'ints of
the compass in our minds once more, and 't will be our own faults if we let
anything turn them topsy-turvy ag'in, as has just 'happened. My name is not
Hurry; Harry, if this be not the very spot where the land-hunters 'camped the
last summer, and passed a week. See I yonder are the dead bushes of their
bower, and here is the spring. Much as I like the sun, boy, I've no occasion
for it to tell me it is noon; this stomach of mine is as good a time-piece as
is to be found in the colony, and it already p'ints to half-past twelve. So
open the wallet, and let us wind up for another six hours' run."

At this suggestion, both set themselves about making the preparations
necessary for their usual frugal but hearty meal. We will profit by this
pause in the discourse to give the reader some idea of the appearance of the
men, each of whom is destined to enact no insignificant part in our legend.
It would not have been easy to find a more noble specimen of vigorous manhood
than was offered in the person of him who called himself Hurry Harry. His
real name was Henry March but the frontiersmen having caught the practice of
giving sobriquets from the Indians, the appellation of Hurry was far oftener
applied to him than his proper designation, and not unfrequently he was
termed Hurry Skurry, a nickname he had obtained from a dashing, reckless
offhand manner, and a physical restlessness that kept him so constantly on
the move, as to cause him to be known along the whole line of scattered
habitations that lay between the province and the Canadas. The stature of
Hurry Harry exceeded six feet four, and being unusually well proportioned,
his strength fully realized the idea created by his gigantic frame. The face
did no discredit to the rest of the man, for it was both good-humored and
handsome. His air was free, and though his manner necessarily partook of the
rudeness of a border life, the grandeur that pervaded So noble a physique
prevented it from becoming altogether vulgar.

Deerslayer, as Hurry called his companion, was a very different person in
appearance, as well as in character. In stature he stood about six feet in
his moccasins, but his frame was comparatively light and slender, showing
muscles, however, that promised unusual agility, if not unusual strength.
His face would have had little to recommend it except youth, were it not for
an expression that seldom failed to win upon those who had leisure to examine
it, and to yield to the feeling of confidence it created. This expression
was simply that of guileless truth, sustained by an earnestness of purpose,
and a sincerity of feeling, that rendered it remarkable. At times this air
of integrity seemed to be so simple as to awaken the suspicion of a want of
the usual means to discriminate between artifice and truth; but few came in
serious contact with the man, without losing this distrust in respect for his
opinions and motives.

Both these frontiersmen were still young, Hurry having reached the age of six
or eight and twenty, while Deerslayer was several years his junior. Their
attire needs no particular description, though it may be well to add that it
was composed in no small degree of dressed deer-skins, and had the usual
signs of belonging to those who pass their Lime between the skirts of
civilized society and the boundless forests. There was, notwithstanding,
some attention to smartness and the picturesque in the arrangements of
Deerslayer's dress, more particularly in the part connected with his arms and
accoutrements. His rifle was in perfect condition,

6

the handle of his hunting-knife was neatly carved, his powder-horn was
ornamented with suitable device slightly cut into the material, and his shot-
pouch was decorated with wampum. On the other hand, Hurry Harry, either from
constitutional recklessness, or from a secret consciousness how little his
appearance required artificial aids, wore everything in a careless, slovenly
manner, as if he felt a noble scorn for the trifling accessories of dress and
ornaments. Perhaps the peculiar effect of his fine form and great stature was
increased rather than lessened, by this unstudied and disdainful air of
indifference.

"Come, Deerslayer, fall to, and prove that you have a Delaware stomach, as
you say you have had a Delaware edication," cried Hurry, setting the example
by opening his mouth to receive a slice of cold venison steak that would have
made an entire meal for a European peasant; " fall to, lad, and prove your
manhood on this poor devil of a doe with your teeth, as you 've already done
with your ride."

"Nay, nay, Hurry, there's little manhood in killing a doe, and that too out
of season; though there might be some in bringing down a painter or a
catamount," returned the other, disposing himself to comply. "The Delawares
have given me my name, not so much on account of a bold heart, as on account
of a quick eye, and an actyve foot. There may not be any cowardyce in
overcoming a deer, but sartain it is, there 's no great valor."

"The Delawares themselves are no heroes," muttered Hurry through his teeth,
the mouth being too full to permit it to be fairly opened, " or they would
never have allowed them loping vagabonds, the Mingos, to make them women. "

"That matter is not rightly understood--has never been rightly explained,"
said Deerslayer earnestly, for he was as zealous a friend as his companion
was dangerous as an enemy; "the Mengwe fill the woods with their lies, and
misconstruct words and treaties. I have now lived ten years with the
Delawares, and know them to be as manful as any other nation, when the proper
time to strike comes."

"Harkee, Master Deerslayer, since we are on the subject, we may as well open
our minds to each other in a man-to man way; answer me one question; you have
had so much luck among the game as to have gotten a title, it would seem, but
did you ever hit anything-human or intelligible: did you ever pull trigger on
an inimy that was capable of pulling one upon you ?"

This question produced a singular collision between mortification and correct
feeling, in the bosom of the youth, that was easily to be traced in the
workings of his ingenuous countenance. The struggle was short, however;
uprightness of heart soon getting the better of false pride and frontier
boastfulness.

"To own the truth, I never did," answered Deerslayer; "seeing that a fitting
occasion never offered. The Delawares have been peaceable since my sojourn
with 'em, and I hold it to be ontawful to take the life of man, except in
open and generous warfare."

"What! did you never find a fellow thieving among pour traps and skins, and
do the law on him with your own hands, by way of saving the magistrates
trouble in the settlements, and the rogue himself the cost of the suit!"

"I am no trapper, Hurry," returned the young man proudly: " I live by the
ride, a we'pon at which I will not turn my back on any man of my years,
atween the Hudson and the St. Lawrence. I never offer a skin that has not a
hole in its head besides them which natur' made to see with or to breathe
through."

"Ay, ay, this is all very well, in the animal way, though it makes but a poor
figure alongside of scalps and ambushes. Shooting an Indian from an ambush is
acting up to his own principles, and now we have what you call a lawful war
on our hands, the sooner you wipe that disgrace off your character, the
sounder will be your sleep; if it only come from knowing there is one inimy
the less prowling in the woods. I shall not ~-frequent your society long,
friend Natty, unless you look higher than four-footed beasts to practice your
ride on."

"Our journey is nearly ended, you say, Master March, and we can part to-
night, if you see occasion. I have a fri'nd waiting for me, who will think it
no disgrace to consort with a fellow-creatur,' that has never yet slain his
kind.''

"I wish I knew what has brought that skulking Delaware ware into this part of
the country so early in the season," muttered Hurry to himself, in a way to
show equally distrust and a recklessness of its betrayal. " Where did you
say the young chief was to give you the meeting!"

"At a small round rock, near the foot of the lake, where they tell me, the
tribes are given to resorting to make their; treaties, and to bury their
hatchets. This rock have f often heard the Delawares mention, though lake
and rock are equally strangers to me. The country is claimed by both Mangos
and Mohicans, and is a sort of common territory to fish and hunt through, in
time of peace, though what it may become in war-time, the Lord only knows I "

"Common territory" exclaimed Hurry, laughing aloud. " I should like to know
what Floating Tom Hutter would say to that! He claims the lake as his own
property, in vartue of fifteen years' possession, and, will not be likely to
give it up to either Mingo or Delaware without a battle for it"

" And what will the colony say to such a quarrel! All this country must have
some owner, the gentry pushing their cravings into the wilderness, even where
they never dare to ventur', in their own persons, to look at the land
they own."

"That may do in other quarters of the colony, Deerslayer, but it will not do
here. Not a human being, the Lord excepted, owns a foot of sile in this part
of the country. Pen was never put to paper consarning either hill or valley
hereaway, as I 've heard old Tom say time and ag'in, and so be claims the
best right to it of any man breathing; and what Tom claims, he'll be very
likely to maintain."

"By what I've heard you say, Hurry, this Floating Tom must be an oncommon
mortal; neither Mingo, Delaware, nor pale-face. His possession, too, has
been long, by your tell, and altogether beyond frontier endurance. What's
the man's history and natur'?"

"Why, as to old Tom's human natur', it is not much like other men's human
natur', but more like a muskrat's human
natar', seeing that he takes more to the ways of that animal than to the ways
of any other fellow-creatur'. Some think he was a free liver on the salt
water, in his youth, and a companion of a sartain I(Kidd, who was hanged for
piracy, long afro you and I were born or acquainted, and that he came up into
these regions, thinking that the king's cruisers could never cross the
mountains, and that he might enjoy the plunder peaceably in the woods."

"Then he was wrong, Hurry; very wrong. A man can enjoy plunder peaceably
nowhere.''

"That's much as his turn of mind may happen to be. I've known them that never
could enjoy it at all, unless it was in the midst of a jollification, and
them again that enjoyed it best in a corner. Some men have no peace if they
don't find plunder, and some if they do. Human nature' is crooked in these
matters. Old Tom seems to belong to neither set, as he enjoys his, if
plunder he has really got, with his darters, in a very quiet and comfortable
way, and wishes for no more."

"Ay, he has darters, too; I've heard the Delawares, who've hunted this a way,
tell their histories of these young women. Is there no mother, Hurry?"

" There was once, as in reason; but she has now been dead and sunk these two
good years.''

" Anan? " said Deerslayer, looking up at his companion in a little surprise.

" Dead and sunk, I say, and I hope that's good English. The old fellow
lowered his wife into the lake, by way of seeing the last of her, as I can
testify, being an eye-witness of the ceremony; but whether Tom did it to save
digging, which is no easy job among roots, or out of a consait that water
washes away sin sooner than 'arth, is more than I can say."

" Was the poor woman oncommon wicked, that her husband should take so much
pains with her body ? "

"Not onreasonable; though she had her faults. I consider Judith Hutter to
have been as graceful, and about as likely to make a good ind as any woman
who had lived so long beyond the sound of church bells I and I conclude old
Tom sunk her as much by way of saving pains, as by way of taking it. There
was a little steel in her temper, it's true, and, as old Hutter is pretty
much flint, they struck out sparks once-and-a-while; but, on the whole, they
might be said to live amicable like. When they did kindle, the listeners got
some such insights into their past lives, as one gets into the darker parts
of the woods, when a stray gleam of sunshine finds its way down to the roots
of the trees. But Judith I shall always esteem, as it's recommend enough to
one woman to be the mother of such a creator' as her darter, Judith Hutter! "

"Ay, Judith was the name the Delawares mentioned, though it was pronounced
after a fashion of their own. From their discourse, I do not think the girl
would much please my fancy."

"Thy fancy!" exclaimed March, taking fire equally at the indifference and at
the presumption of his companion, " what the devil have you to do with a
fancy, and that, too, consarning one like Judith? You are but a boy--a
sapling, that has scarce got root. Judith has had men among her suitors, ever
since she was fifteen; which is now near five years; and will not be apt even
to cast a look upon a half-grown creatur' like you ! "

"It is June, and there is not a cloud atween us and the sun, Hurry, so all
this heat is not wanted," answered the other, altogether undisturbed ; " any
one may have a fancy, and a squirrel has a right to make up his mind touching
a catamount.''

"Ay, but it might not be wise, always, to let the catamount knowit." growled
March. "But you're young and thoughtless, and I'll overlook your ignorance.
Come, Deerslayer," he added, with a good-natured laugh, after pausing a
moment to reflect, "come, Deerslayer, we are sworn friends, and will not
quarrel about a light-minded, jilting jade, just because she happens to be
handsome; more especially as you have never seen her. Judith is only for a
man whose teeth show the full marks, and it 's foolish to be afford of a boy.
What did the Delawares say of the hussy' for an Indian, after all, has his
notions of woman-kind, as well as a white man."

"They said she was fair to look on, and pleasant of speech; but over-given to
admirers, and light-minded."

"They are devils incarnate! After all, what schoolmaster is a match for an
Indian, in looking into nature' ! Some people think they are only good on a
trail or the war-path, but I say that they are philosophers, and understand a
man as well as they understand a beaver, and a woman as well as they
understand either. Now that's Judith's character to a ribbon ! To own the
truth to you, Deerslayer, I should have married the gal two years since, if
it had not been for two particular things, one of which was this very
lightmindedness.''

" And what may have been the other?" demanded the hunter, who continued to
eat like one that took very little interest in the subject.

" T'other was an insartainty about her having me. The hussy is handsome, and
she knows it. Boy, not a tree that is growing in these hills is straighter,
or waves in the wind with an easier bend, nor did you ever see the doe that
bounded with a more nat'ral motion. If that was all, every tongue would
sound her praises ; but she has such failings that I find it hard to overlook
them, and sometimes I Swear I'll never visit the lake again."

" Which is the reason that you always come back? Nothing is ever made more
sure by swearing about it.''

" Ah, Deerslayer, you are a novelty in these particulars; keeping as true to
education as if you had never left the settlements. With me the case is
different, and I never want to clinch an idee, that I do not feel a wish to
swear about it. If you know'd all that I know consarning Judith, you 'd find
a justification for a little cussing. Now, the officers sometimes stray over
to the lake, from the forts on the Mohawk, to fish and hunt, and then the
creator' seems beside herself! You can see in the manner which she wears her
finery, and the airs she gives herself with the gallants."

" That is unseemly in a poor man's darter," returned Deerslayer gravely, "
the officers are all gentry, and can only look on such as Judith with evil
intentions."

"There's the unsartainty, and the damper! I have my misgivings about a
particular captain, and Jude has no one to blame but her own folly, if I'm
right. On the whole, I wish to look upon her as modest and becoming, and yet
the clouds that drive among these hills are not more unsartain. Not a dozen
white men have ever laid eyes upon her since she was a child, and yet her
airs, with two or three of these officers, are extinguishers! "
" I would think no more of such a woman, but turn my mind altogether to the
forest; that will not deceive you, being ordered and ruled by a hand that
never wavers."

" If you know'd Judith, you would see how much easier it is to say this than
it would be to do it. Could I bring my mind to be easy about the officers,
I would carry the gal off to the Mohawk by force, make her marry me in spite
of her whiffling, and leave old Tom to the care of Hefty, his other child,
who, if she be not as handsome or as quick-witted as her sister, is much the
most dutiful."

" Is there another bird in the same nest! " asked Deerslayer, raising his
eyes with a species of half-awakened curiosity,--" the Delawares spoke to me
only of one.''

That's nat'ral enough, when Judith Hutter and Hefty Hutter are in question.
Hefty is only comely, while her sister, I tell thee, boy, is such another as
is not to be found attain this and the sea: Judith is as full of wit, and
talk, and cunning, as an old Indian orator, while poor Hefty is at the best
but ' compass meant us.' " " Anan?'' inquired, again, the Deerslayer.

" Why, what the officers call 'compass meant us,' which I understand to
signify' that she means always to go in the right direction, but sometimes
does not know how. 'Compass'for the p'int, and 'meant us' for the intention.
No, poor Hetty is what I call on the verge of ignorance, and sometimes she
stumbles on one side of the line, and sometimes on toothier."

" Them are beings that the Lord has in his 'special care," said Deerslayer,
solemnly; " for he looks carefully to all who fall short of their proper
share of reason. The redskins honor and respect them who are so gifted,
knowing that the
Evil Spirit delights more to dwell in an artful body, than in one that has no
cunning to work upon."

"I'11 answer for it, then, that he will not remain long with poor Kitty; for
the child is just'compass meant us,' as I have told you. Old Tom has a
feeling for the gal, and so has Judith, quick-witted and glorious as she is
herself; else would I not answer for her being altogether safe among the sort
of men that sometimes meet on the lake shore."