Free Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by James Fenimore Cooper Page A

against Hurry Harry in so much as a matter touching a mink or a woodchuck!”
    “I would dare to speak truth, Hurry, consarning you or any man that ever lived.”
    March looked at his companion, for a moment, in silent amazement ; then seizing him by the throat with both hands, he shook his comparatively slight frame with a violence that menaced the dislocation of some of the bones. Nor was this done jocularly, for anger flashed from the giant’s eyes, and there were certain signs that seemed to threaten much more earnestness than the occasion would appear to call for. Whatever might be the real intention of March, and it is probable there was none settled in his mind, it is certain that he was unusually aroused; and most men who found themselves throttled by one of a mold so gigantic, in such a mood, and in a solitude so deep and helpless, would have felt intimidated, and tempted to yield even the right. Not so, however, with Deerslayer. His countenance remained unmoved; his hand did not shake, and his answer was given in a voice that did not resort to the artifice of louder tones, even by way of proving its owner’s resolution.
    “You may shake, Hurry, until you bring down the mountain,” he said quietly, “but nothing beside truth will you shake from me. It is probable that Judith Hutter has no husband to slay, and you may never have a chance to waylay one, else would I tell her of your threat, in the first conversation I held with the gal.”
    March released his grip, and sat regarding the other in silent astonishment.
    “I thought we had been friends,” he at length added; “but you’ve got the last secret of mine that will ever enter your ears.”
    “I want none, if they are to be like this. I know we live in the woods, Hurry, and are thought to be beyond human laws—and perhaps we are so, in fact, whatever it may be in right—but there is a law and a lawmaker, that rule across the whole continent. He that flies in the face of either need not call me a friend.”
    “Damme, Deerslayer, if I do not believe you are at heart a Moravian, and no fair-minded, plain-dealing hunter, as you’ve pretended to be!”
    “Fair-minded or not, Hurry, you will find me as plain-dealing in deeds as I am in words. But this giving way to sudden anger is foolish, and proves how little you have sojourned with the redman. Judith Hutter no doubt is still single, and you spoke but as the tongue ran, and not as the heart felt. There’s my hand, and we will say and think no more about it.”
    Hurry seemed more surprised than ever; then he burst forth in a loud, good-natured laugh, which brought tears to his eyes. After this he accepted the offered hand, and the parties became friends.
    “’T would have been foolish to quarrel about an idee,” March cried, as he resumed his meal, “and more like lawyers in the towns than like sensible men in the woods. They tell me, Deerslayer, much ill-blood grows out of idees among the people in the lower counties, and that they sometimes get to extremities upon them.”
    “That do they—that do they; and about other matters that might better be left to take care of themselves. I have heard the Moravians say that there are lands in which men quarrel even consarning their religion; and if they can get their tempers up on such a subject, Hurry, the Lord have marcy on ‘em. Howsever, there is no occasion for our following their example, and more especially about a husband that this Judith Hutter may never see, or never wish to see. For my part, I feel more cur’osity about the feeble-witted sister than about your beauty There’s something that comes close to a man’s feelin‘s, when he meets with a fellow creatur’ that has all the outward show of an accountable mortal, and who fails of being what he seems, only through a lack of reason. This is bad enough in a man, but when it comes to a woman, and she a young, and maybe a winning creatur’ it touches all the pitiful thoughts his