bear's meat, Judge, you’ll have to take the long rifle, with a greased
wadding, or you’ll waste more powder than you’ll fill stomachs, I’m
thinking.”

As the speaker concluded he drew his bare hand across the bottom of
his nose, and again opened his enormous mouth with a kind of inward
laugh.

“The gun scatters well, Natty, And it has killed a deer before now,”
said the traveller, smiling good-humoredly. “One barrel was charged
with buckshot, but the other was loaded for birds only. Here are two
hurts; one through the neck, and the other directly through the heart.
It is by no means certain, Natty, but I gave him one of the two

“Let who will kill him.” said the hunter, rather surily.

“I suppose the creature is to be eaten.” So saying, he drew a large
knife from a leathern sheath, which was stuck through his girdle, or
sash, and cut the throat of the animal, “If there are two balls
through the deer, I would ask if there weren’t two rifles fired—
besides, who ever saw such a ragged hole from a smooth-bore as this
through the neck? And you will own yourself, Judge, that the buck fell
at the last shot, which was sent from a truer and a younger hand than
your’n or mine either; but, for my part, although I am a poor man I
can live without the venison, but I don’t love to give up my lawful
dues in a free country. Though, for the matter of that, might often
makes right here, as well as in the old country, for what I can see.”

An air of sullen dissatisfaction pervaded the manner of the hunter
during the whole of his speech; yet he thought it prudent to utter the