 Half-grown, venison hunting bantling! You, dare to think of
informing against Hurry-Harry in so much as a matter touching a mink, or a
woodchuck!«
    »I would dare to speak truth, Hurry, consarning you, or any man that ever
lived.«
    March looked at his companion, for a moment, in silent amazement; then
seizing him by the throat, with both hands, he shook his comparatively slight
frame, with a violence that menaced the dislocation of some of the bones. Nor
was this done jocularly, for anger flashed from the giant's eyes, and there were
certain signs, that seemed to threaten much more earnestness than the occasion
would appear to call for. Whatever might be the real intention of March, and it
is probable there was none settled in his mind, it is certain that he was
unusually aroused, and most men who found themselves throttled by one of a mould
so gigantic, in such a mood, and in a solitude so deep and helpless, would have
felt intimidated, and tempted to yield even the right. Not so, however, with
Deerslayer. His countenance remained unmoved; his hand did not shake, and his
answer was given in a voice that did not resort to the artifice of louder tones,
even, by way of proving its owner's resolution.
    »You may shake, Hurry, until you bring down the mountain,« he said quietly,
»but nothing beside truth will you shake from me. It is probable that Judith
Hutter has no husband to slay, and you may never have a chance to way lay one,
else would I tell her of your threat, in the first conversation I held with the
gal.«
    March released his gripe, and sat regarding the other, in silent
astonishment.
    »I thought we had been friends,« he at length added - »but you've got the
last secret of mine, that will ever enter your ears.«
    »I want none, if they are to be like this. I know we live in the woods,
Hurry, and are thought to be beyond human laws - and perhaps we are so, in fact,
whatever it may be in right - but there is a law, and a law maker, that rule
across the whole continent. He that flies in the face of either, need not call
me fri'nd.«
    »Damme, Deerslayer, if I do not believe you are, at heart, a Moravian, and
no fair minded, plain dealing hunter, as you've pretended
