I built this dwelling in order to have 'em at arm's length,
in case we should ever get to blows again. Some people think
it's too open and exposed, but I'm for anchoring out here, clear
of underbrush and thickets, as the surest means of making a safe
berth."
"You was once a sailor, they tell me, old Tom?" said Hurry, in
his abrupt manner, struck by one or two expressions that the other
had just used, "and some people believe you could give us strange
accounts of inimies and shipwrecks, if you'd a mind to come out
with all you know?"
"There are people in this world, Hurry," returned the other,
evasively, "who live on other men's thoughts; and some such often
find their way into the woods. What I've been, or what I've seen
in youth, is of less matter now than what the savages are. It's of
more account to find out what will happen in the next twenty-four
hours than to talk over what happened twenty-four years since."
"That's judgment, Deerslayer; yes, that's sound judgment. Here's
Judith and Hetty to take care of, to say nothing of our own top-knots;
and, for my part, I can sleep as well in the dark as I could under
a noonday sun. To me it's no great matter whether there is light
or not, to see to shut my eyes by.
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