tenance sensibly changed, and he shook his head doubtingly.
"Here has been a knife at work," he said—"this skin was never torn, nor is this the mark of a hound's tooth. No, no Hector is not in fault, as I feared."
"Has the leather been cut?" cried Edwards.
"No, no—I didn't say it had been cut, lad; but this is a mark that was never made by a jump or a bite."
"Could that rascally carpenter have dared!" exclaimed the impetuous youth.
"Ay! he durst to do any thing, where there is no danger," said Natty; "he is a curious body, and loves to be helping other people on with their concarns. But he had best not harbour so much near the wigwam!"
In the mean time, Mohegan had been examining, with an Indian's sagacity, the place where the leather thong had been separated. After scrutinizing it closely, he said, in Delaware—
"It was cut with a knife a sharp blade and a long handle and the man was afraid of the dogs."
"How is this, Mohegan?" exclaimed Edwards; "You saw it not! how can you know these facts?"
"Listen, son," said the warrior. "The knife was sharp, for the cut is smooth;—the handle was long, for a man's arm would not reach from this gash to that cut that did not go through the skin;—he was a coward, or he would have cut the thongs around the necks of the hounds."
"On my life," cried Natty, "John is on the scent! It was that carpenter; and he has got on the rock bark of the kennel, and let the dogs loose by fastening his knife to a stick. It would
