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after waiting a moment, to see the effect of this extraordinary development, proceeded

"Yes, sir, I have my reasons, and at a proper time you shall know them."

"No time is so good as the present."

"Well, well, be attentive," continued Richard, looking cautiously about him, to make certain that no eavesdropper was hid in the forest, though they were in constant motion. "I have seen Mohegan and the Leather-stocking, with my own eyes and my eyes are as good as anybody's eyes-I have seen them, I say, both going up the mountain and coming down it; with spades and picks; and others have seen them carrying things into their hut, in a secret and mysterious manner, after dark. Do you call this a fact of importance?"

The Judge did not reply, but his brow had contracted, with a thoughtfulness that he always wore when much interested, and his eyes rested on his cousin in expectation of hearing Richard continued

more.

"It was ore. Now, sir, I ask if you can tell me who this Mr. Oliver Edwards is, that has made a part of your household since Christmas?

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Marmaduke again raised his eyes, but continued silent, shaking his head in the negative.

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That he is a half-breed we know, for Mohegan does not scruple to call him openly his kinsman; that he is well educated we know. But as to his business here-do you remember that about a month before this young man made his appearance among us, Natty was absent from home several days?

You do; for you inquired for him, as you wanted some venison to take to your friends, when you went for Bess. Well, he was not to be found. Old John was left in the hut alone; and when Natty did appear, although he came on in the night, he was seen drawing one of those jumpers that they carry their grain to mill in, and to take out something with great care, that he had covered up under his bear-skins. Now let me ask you, Judge Temple, what motive could induce a

extremity; neither how often they pressed each other's arms, as the assurance of their present safety came, like a healing balm athwart their troubled spirits, when their thoughts were recurring to the recent moments of horror.

Leather-stocking remained on the hill, gazing after their retiring figures, until they were hidden by a bend in the road, when he whistled in his dogs, and shouldering his rifle, he returned into the forest.

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"Well, it was a skeary thing to the young creaters," said Natty, while he retrod the path towards the plain. “It might frighten an older woman, to see a she painter so near her, with a dead cub by its side. I wonder if I had aimed at the varmint's eye, if I shouldn't have touched the life sooner than in the forehead; but they are hard-lived animals, and it was a good shot, consid'ring that I could see nothing but the head and the peak of its tail. Hah! who goes there?"

"How goes it, Natty ?" said Mr. Doolittle, stepping out of the bushes, with a motion that was a good deal accelerated by the sight of the rifle, that was already lowered in his direction. . "What! shooting this warm day! mind, old man, the law don't get hold on you."

"The law, squire! I have shook hands with the law these forty year," returned Natty; "for what has a man who lives in the wilderness to do with the ways of the law?"

"Not much, may be," said Hiram; "but you sometimes trade in venison. I s'pose you know, Leather-stocking, that there is an act passed to lay a fine of five pounds currency, or twelve dollars and fifty cents, by decimals, on every man who kills a deer betwixt January and August. The Judge had a great hand in getting the law through."

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"I can believe it," returned the old hunter; I can believe that or anything, of a man who carries on as he does in the country."

"Yes, the law is quite positive, and the Judge is bent on putting it in force-five pounds penalty. I thought I heard

your hounds out on the scent of so'thing this morning: I didn't know but they might get you in difficulty."

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'They know their manners too well," said Natty, carelessly. "And how much goes to the state's evidence, squire ?”

"How much!" repeated Hiram, quailing under the honest but sharp look of the hunter:- -"the informer gets half I—I believe ;-yes, I guess it's half. But there's blood on your sleeve, man-you haven't been shooting anything this morning?"

“I have, though,” said the hunter, nodding his head significantly to the other, "and a good shot I made of it."

"H-e-m!" ejaculated the magistrate; "and where is the game? I s'pose it's of a good nater, for your dogs won't hunt at anything that isn't choice."

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'They'll hunt anything I tell them to, squire,” cried Natty, favoring the other with his laugh. "They'll hunt you, if I say So. He-ee-re, he-e-e-re, Hector-he-e-e-re, slut-come this away, pups-come this away--come hither."

"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 never 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.

66 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.

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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 ag'in killing the painters." "No; there's a bounty on the scalps-but-will your dogs hunt painters, Natty ?"

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'Anything; didn't I tell you they'd hunt a man? He-e-re, he-e-re, pups

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"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 practised hand around the ears, which he tore from the head of the beast in such a manner as to preserve their connexion, 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 suppose 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 yourn will do as well as

another's. Come, the carcases 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 creaters, 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

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