. Well, they are strange dogs, I must say - I am quite
in a wonderment.«
    Natty had seated himself on the ground, and having laid the grim head of his
late ferocious enemy in his lap, was drawing his knife, with a practised hand,
around the ears, which he tore from the head of the beast in such a manner as to
preserve their connexion, when he answered -
    »What at, Squire? did you never see a painter's scalp afore? Come, you be a
magistrate. I wish you'd make me out an order for the bounty.«
    »The bounty!« repeated Hiram, holding the ears on the end of his finger, for
a moment, as if uncertain how to proceed. »Well, let us go down to your hut,
where you can take the oath, and I will write out the order. I s'pose you have a
bible? all the law wants is the four evangelists and the Lord's prayer.«
    »I keep no books,« said Natty, a little coldly; »not such a bible as the law
needs.«
    »Oh! there's but one sort of bible that's good in law,« returned the
magistrate; »and yourn will do as well as another's. Come, the carcasses are
worth nothing, man; let us go down and take the oath.«
    »Softly, softly, Squire,« said the hunter, lifting his trophies very
deliberately from the ground, and shouldering his rifle; »why do you want an
oath at all, for a thing that your own eyes has seen? won't you believe
yourself, that another man must swear to a fact that you know to be true? You
have seen me scalp the creaters, and if I must swear to it, it shall be before
Judge Temple, who needs an oath.«
    »But we have no pen or paper here, Leather-stocking; we must go to the hut
for them, or how can I write the order?«
    Natty turned his simple features on the cunning magistrate with another of
his laughs, as he said -
    »And what should I be doing with scholar's tools? I want no pens or paper,
not knowing the use of 'ither; and I keep none. No, no, I'll bring the scalps
into the village, Squire, and you can make out the order on one of your
law-books, and it will be all the better for it
