red
giant, laughing; "there was a large gang of us in the lake, the summer
the old fellow built, and we helped him along with the job. I raised no
small part of the weight of them uprights with my own shoulders, and
the axes flew, I can inform you, Master Natty, while we were bee-ing it
among the trees ashore. The old devil is no way stingy about food, and
as we had often eat at his hearth, we thought we would just house him
comfortably, afore we went to Albany with our skins. Yes, many is the
meal I've swallowed in Tom Hutter's cabins; and Hetty, though so weak in
the way of wits, has a wonderful particular way about a frying-pan or a
gridiron!

"While the parties were thus discoursing, the canoe had been gradually
drawing nearer to the "castle," and was now so close as to require but
a single stroke of a paddle to reach the landing. This was at a floored
platform in front of the entrance, that might have been some twenty feet
square.

"Old Tom calls this sort of a wharf his door-yard," observed Hurry, as
he fastened the canoe, after he and his Companion had left it: "and the
gallants from the forts have named it the castle court though what a
'court' can have to do here is more than I can tell you, seeing that
there is no law. 'Tis as I supposed; not a soul within, but the whole
family is off on a v'y'ge of discovery!"

While Hurry was bustling about the "door-yard," examining the
fishing-spears, rods, nets, and other similar appliances of a frontier
cabin, Deerslayer, whose manner was altogether more rebuked and quiet,
entered the building with a curiosity that was not usually exhibited by
one so long trained in Indian habits. The interior of the "castle" was
as faultlessly neat as its exterior was novel. The entire space, some
twenty feet by forty, was subdivided into several small sleeping-rooms;
the apartment into which he first entered, serving equally for the
ordinary uses of its inmates, and for a kitchen. The furniture was of
the strange mixture that it is not uncommon to find in the remotely
situated log-tenements of the interior. Most of it was rude, and to the
last degree rustic; but there was a clock, with a handsome case of dark
wood, in a corner, and two or three chairs, with a table and bureau,
that had evidently come from some dwelling of more than usual
pretension. The clock was industriously ticking, but its leaden-looking
hands did no discredit to their dull aspect, for they pointed to the
hour