The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-02-09
copyrIsht, lses, b living Kins.

All Rights Reserved.
ssThe Deerslayer'' Is the first Of the
Leather stock;ng tais e. In .to Paint %
concerned, but in point Of publication
4 e the last: Il was i p Ia, a!te e,
s mlsh tb ns Ss wrSss fs
in which the famous young hunter
makes his appearance.
er's one ns great achievsment in charac-
ter drawing. All his other characters,
picturesque and romantic though they
may be; are merely accessories as;,s bn "
the great prize men Of fiction by
even so exacting q critic as Thackeray.
For modern taste. peerslayer, or
h haWR Eye 'o eaii 81 Which names are
given to Bumppo in the various nov
els), is too stflted in his conversation
t fa S but the stories are thrill
ling, and the description OF natural
scenes in the young America are be-
yond price.
In the eighteenth century, few
years before the time Of the French
and Indian wars, strange structure
began to uprsar itself In the middle
OF Lake Otsego, which then lay IN that
untrodden wilderness that is now can
trail New York.
even the Indians visited It only oc-
casionally as chance rowing bands, an
adventurer of mysterious antecedents.
who had appeared suddenly In the
Mohawk Valley settlements. began to
build for himself a habitation that
probably was different from any other
existing then in any part Of the West
ern world.
Instead OF building a log cabin in
the woods, such as the other settlers
naturally adopted. he drove great
spiles into q shoaI that rose to with
In a few feet of the surface--the only
shoal in this whole body OF water.
On these splies he erected a massive
dwelling of logs fully two feet thick.
loopholed for rifles and provided with
a further protection in the shape of
a palisade of sapling driven into the
shoal and open only at one entrance,
where a platform offered landing
place.
The very daring of this plan formed
it's security. Though IL was 80 con-
spicuous as to catch the eye Of any
intruder on those lonely shores, 1t
was quite inaccessible except by boat;
and the spoils to be obtained were
hardly sufficient to induce Indians to
transport or make birch-barlk canoes
for the purpose Of attack, while the
expedient of attacking by raft threw
ali the hazard on the assailing party.
In this water fort the owner, who
called himself Thomas Hutter, lived
with his daughters, Hetty, who was
generally considered little deranged,
or at least feeble-minded, and Judith,
D dark, glowing beauty. who had
turned the head OF more than one Brit
ish 0fflcer In the settlements, and, II
rumor spoke truly, had not withstood
their wooinga with entire blauaeiess-
ness.
when they first entered their re-
mote and lonely home there was en-
other member in their housahold7-the
wife and mother, q beautiful, gentle
distinguished woman, strangely differ
emit from the rough savage woman
whose name she bore. she had not
lived long after entering the wilder
ness, and lay buried in the deepest
part of the lake.
For the purpose Of trapping and
hunting Thomas Hutter Quilt a great
vessel, scow-like, In construction,
bearing a long deck house with sides
thick enough to be bullet proof. In
this he cruised up and down the nine
miles length OF his watery domain.
using sweeps in a calm or head winds
and sailing with big, square SAIL
when the breeze favored.
The ARK" as it was known to the
few frontiersmen who visited the lake,
was absent on one OF these expedis
tionss when two young men broke
through the June forest. and. after
casting about in the underbrush for
some time, drew forth q birch bark
canoe from the hollow of a sallen tree,
where it had been hidden. Their gar
ments OF tanned deerslxin marked
them as wilderness hunters, while the
names by which they addressed each
other would have proclaimed them To
any frontiersman as two Of the mort
famous of the adventurous spicits who
made the lonely trails of the great
primeval forest that stretched between
the st. Lawrence and the headwaters
of the Delaware River.
Though they had made their way
together from the settlements, they
were only chance companions. The
gigantic Hurry Harry. so named be-
cause Of his hasty ana inpetUous tenn
per. was pressing forward as = mes
senger Of war TO warn the HutteTS
dian allies were moving from the
north to attack the English and their
allies, the Delawares.
The other hunter, Nathaniel Bump
DO, named Deerslayer by the Della
wares, with whom he lived, was on
his way to meet his friend Chingach-
cook, son of the Mohican chief I'M
These two young men we're to start
together on a dual mission. It was to
be their first warpath, for they were
to fight on the side OF the English
and in addition they were In search
Of Chingachgook' Indian sweetheart
Hist. who had beer. stolen from her
wigwam by a Mohican renegade, Yo-
common, or Briarthorn, and carried off
to an Iroquois band. This band had
moved down into the region around
Otsego to hunt and fish, and the two
men had arranged to pierce the for
ests from different directions and meet
at rock in the lower part of the
lake.
Having padded to the castle and
found 1t deserted the two hunters pro-
eeeded cautiously down the lake, Judg-
ing correctly that Hutter had worked
his ark into the tree-hidden narrow
river that formed it's outlet. It was
not easy for even their keen eyes to
see the opning, so thoroughly mad II
been masked by nature with over
hanging vegetation. Just within the
stream by means of a long cable fas-
tened to an anchor laid far out in
the lake, they discovered the ark.
They found OLE Hutter prepared for
their news, for after he had entered
the river he had sOne across the trail
Of a large hunting party; and he was
anxious and disturbed lest the Indian
should cut hiK OF before he could
get the ark out of the close QUAR-
tiers in which she lay. The three men
wasted little time in talk, but hurried
the girls into the security Of the cab
in and hauled powerfully on the os.bie.