, the night of his arrival with
the sled, and very good-naturedly offered - Hiram is good natured - to carry up
part of his load, for the old man had a heavy pull up the back of the mountain,
but he wouldn't listen to the thing, and repulsed the offer in such a manner
that the Squire said he had half a mind to swear the peace against him. Since
the snow has been off, more especially after the frosts got out of the ground,
we have kept a watchful eye on the gentleman, in which we have found Jotham
useful.«
    Marmaduke did not much like the associates of Richard in this business;
still he knew them to be cunning and ready in expedients; and as there was
certainly something mysterious, not only in the connexion between the old
hunters and Edwards, but in what his cousin had just related, he begun to
revolve the subject in his own mind with more care. On reflection, he remembered
various circumstances that tended to corroborate these suspicions, and, as the
whole business favoured one of his infirmities, he yielded the more readily to
their impression. The mind of Judge Temple, at all times comprehensive, had
received, from his peculiar occupations, a bias to look far into futurity, in
his speculations on the improvements that posterity were to make in his lands.
To his eye, where others saw nothing but a wilderness, towns, manufactories,
bridges, canals, mines, and all the other resources of an old country, were
constantly presenting themselves, though his good sense suppressed, in some
degree, the exhibition of these expectations.
    As the Sheriff allowed his cousin full time to reflect on what he had heard,
the probability of some pecuniary adventure being the connecting link in the
chain that brought Oliver Edwards into the cabin of Leather-stocking, appeared
to him each moment to be stronger. But Marmaduke was too much in the habit of
examining both sides of a subject, not to perceive the objections, and he
reasoned with himself aloud: -
    »It cannot be so, or the youth would not be driven so near the verge of
poverty.«
    »What so likely to make a man dig for money, as being poor?« cried the
Sheriff.
    »Besides, there is an elevation of character about Oliver, that proceeds
from education, which would forbid so clandestine a proceeding.«
    »Could an ignorant fellow smelt?« continued Richard.
    »Bess hints that he was reduced even to his last shilling, when we took him
into our dwelling.«
    »He had been buying