The Deerslayer | Page 9

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 Hetty, 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 Hetty Hutter are in question. Hetty is only
comely, while her sister, I tell thee, boy, is such another as is not to be found atween this
and the sea: Judith is as full of wit, and talk, and cunning, as an old Indian orator, while
poor Hetty 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 t'other."
"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 red-skins
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'll answer for it, then, that he will not remain long with poor Hetty; 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."
"I thought this water an unknown and little-frequented sheet," observed the Deerslayer,
evidently uneasy at the idea of being too near the world.
"It's all that, lad, the eyes of twenty white men never having been laid on it; still, twenty
true-bred frontiersmen -- hunters and trappers, and scouts, and the like, -- can do a deal of
mischief if they try. 'T would be an awful thing to me, Deerslayer, did I find Judith
married, after an absence of six months!"
"Have you the gal's faith, to encourage you to hope otherwise?"
"Not at all. I know not how it is: I'm good-looking, boy, -- that much I can see in any
spring on which the sun shines, -- and yet I could not get the hussy to a promise, or even
a cordial willing smile, though she will laugh by the hour. If she has dared to marry in my
absence, she'd be like to know the pleasures of widowhood afore she is twenty!"
"You would not harm the man she has chosen, Hurry, simply because she found him
more to her liking than yourself!"
Why not! If an enemy crosses my path, will I not beat him out of it! Look at me! am I a
man like to let any sneaking, crawling, skin-trader get the better of me in a matter that
touches me as near as the kindness of Judith Hutter! Besides, when we live beyond law,
we must be our own judges and executioners. And if a man should be found dead in the
woods, who is there to say who slew him, even admitting that the colony took the matter

in hand and made a stir about it?"
"If that man should be Judith Hutter's husband, after what has passed, I might tell enough,
at least, to put the colony on the trail."
"You!--half-grown, venison-hunting bantling! You dare to think of informing against
Hurry Harry in so much as a matter touching a mink or a woodchuck!"
"I