“Anything; didn't I tell you they would hunt a man? He-e-re, he-e-re, pups—”
“Yes, yes, I remember. 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 practiced hand around the ears, which he tore from the head of the beast in such a manner as to preserve their connection, when he answered;
“What at, squire? did you never see a painter's scalp afore? Come, you are 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 suppose 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 your'n 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 creatur's, 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: