"That creatur' goes off with gratitude in his heart," said Deerslayer,
"for natur' tells him he has escaped a great danger. You ought to
have some of the same feelin's, Hurry, to think your eye wasn't
true, or that your hand was onsteady, when no good could come of
a shot that was intended onmeaningly rather than in reason."
"I deny the eye and the hand," cried March with some heat. "You've
got a little character, down among the Delawares, there, for quickness
and sartainty, at a deer, but I should like to see you behind one
of them pines, and a full painted Mingo behind another, each with
a cock'd rifle and a striving for the chance! Them's the situations,
Nathaniel, to try the sight and the hand, for they begin with trying
the narves. I never look upon killing a creatur' as an explite;
but killing a savage is. The time will come to try your hand, now
we've got to blows ag'in, and we shall soon know what a ven'son
reputation can do in the field. I deny that either hand or eye
was onsteady; it was all a miscalculation of the buck, which stood
still when he ought to have kept in motion, and so I shot ahead of
him."
"Have it your own way, Hurry; all I contend for is, that it's
lucky.
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