"Any thing;—didn't I tell you they'd hunt a man? He-e-re, he-e-re, pups"———
"Oh! 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 practised hand, around the ears, which he tore from the head of the beast in such a manner as to preserve their connexion, when he answered—
"What at, Squire? did you never see a painter's scalp afore? Come, you be 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 s'pose you have a bible? all the law wants is the four evangelists and the Lord's prayer."
"I rather guess not," said Natty, a little coldly; "not such a bible as the law needs."
"Oh! there's but one sort of bible, at least that's good in law," returned the magistrate; "and yourn 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 seen me scalp the creaters, and if I must swear to it, it shall be before Judge Temple, who needs an oath."
