contention in the feelings of the youth; and, advancing, kindly took
his hand, and, as he pulled him gently toward the sleigh, urged him to
enter it.

“There is no human aid nearer than Templeton,” he said, “and the hut
of Natty is full three miles from this— come, come, my young friend,
go with us, and let the new doctor look to this shoulder of thine.
Here is Natty will take the tidings of thy welfare to thy friend; and
shouldst thou require it, thou shalt return home in the morning.”
The young man succeeded in extricating his hand from the warm grasp of
the Judge, but he continued to gaze on the face of the female, who,
regardless of the cold, was still standing with her fine features
exposed, which expressed feeling that eloquently seconded the request
of her father. Leather-Stocking stood, in the mean time, leaning upon
his long rifle, with his head turned a little to one side, as if
engaged in sagacious musing; when, having apparently satisfied his
doubts, by revolving the subject in his mind, he broke silence.
“It may be best to go, lad, after all; for, if the shot hangs under
the skin, my hand is getting too old to be cutting into human flesh,
as I once used to, Though some thirty years agone, in the old war,
when I was out under Sir William, I travelled seventy miles alone in
the howling wilderness, with a rifle bullet in my thigh, and then cut
it out with my own jack-knife. Old Indian John knows the time well.
I met him with a party of the Delawares, on the trail of the Iroquois,
who had been down and taken five scalps on the Schoharie. But I made
a mark on the red-skin that I’ll warrant he’ll carry to his grave! I
took him on the posteerum, saving the lady's presence, as he got up
from the ambushment, and rattled three buckshot into his naked hide,
so close that you might have laid a broad joe upon them all”—here
Natty stretched out his long neck, and straightened his body, as he