on.«
    »Our journey is nearly ended you say, Master March, and we can part
to-night, if you see occasion. I have a fri'nd waiting for me, who will think it
no disgrace to consart with a fellow creatur' that has never yet slain his
kind.«
    »I wish I knew what has brought that skulking Delaware into this part of the
country, so early in the season« - muttered Hurry to himself, in a way to show
equally distrust, and a recklessness of its betrayal. »Where did you say, the
young chief was to give you the meeting?«
    »At a small round rock, near the foot of the lake, where they tell me the
tribes are given to resorting to make their treaties, and to bury their
hatchets. This rock have I often heard the Delawares mention, though lake and
rock are equally strangers to me. The country is claimed by both Mingos and
Mohicans, and is a sort of common territory to fish and hunt through, in times
of peace, though what it may become in war-time, the Lord only knows!«
    »Common territory!« exclaimed Hurry, laughing aloud. »I should like to know
what Floating Tom Hutter would say to that? He claims the lake as his own
property, in vartue of fifteen years' possession, and will not be likely to give
it up to either Mingo or Delaware, without a battle for it.«
    »And what will the Colony say to such a quarrel - all this country must have
some owner, the gentry pushing their cravings into the wilderness, even where
they never dare to ventur' in their own parsons to look at the land they own.«
    »That may do in other quarters of the colony, Deerslayer, but it will not do
here. Not a human being, the Lord excepted, owns a foot of s'ile, in this part
of the country. Pen was never put to paper, consarning either hill or valley,
hereaway, as I've heard old Tom say, time and ag'in, and so he claims the best
right to it of any man breathing; and what Tom claims, he'll be very likely to
maintain.«
    »By what I've heard you say, Hurry, this Floating Tom must be an oncommon
mortal; neither Mingo, Delaware, nor Pale Face. His possession, too, has been
long, by your tell, and altogether beyond frontier endurance. What's the man's
history and human natur'