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 time, he urged his course obliquely for the centre of the lake, with an intention of landing on the western shore. As the buck swam by the fishermen, raising his nose high into the air, curling the water before his slim neck like the beak of a galley, throwing his legs forward, and gliding along with incredible velocity, the Leather-stocking began to sit very uneasy in his canoe.

"'Tis a noble creater!" he exclaimed; "what a pair of horns! a man might hang up all his garments on the branches. Lets me see—July is the last month, and the flesh must be getting good." While he was talking, Natty had instinctively employed himself in fastening the inner end of the bark rope, that served him fur a cable, to a paddle, and, rising suddenly on his legs, he cast this buoy away from him, and cried—"Strike out, John! let her go. The creater's a fool to tempt a man in this way."

Mohegan threw the fastening of the youth's boat off the canoe, and, with one stroke of his paddle sent the light bark over the water like a meteor.

"Hold!" exclaimed Edwards. "Remember the law, my old friends. You are in plain sight of the village, and I know that Judge Temple is determined to prosecute all, indiscriminately, who kill the deer out of season."

But the remonstrance came too late; the canoe was already far from the skiff, and the two hunters too much engaged in their pursuit to listen to his voice.

The buck was now within fifty yards of his pursuers, cutting the water most gallantly, and snorting at each breath with his terror and his exertions, while the canoe seemed to dance over the waves, as it rose and fell with the undulations made by its own motion. Leather-stocking raised