"That is all right for the Indian - but you do not mean to marry
Hist - you are not betrothed, and why should two risk their lives
and liberties, to do that which one can just as well perform?"

"Ah - now I understand you, Judith - yes, now I begin to take the
idee. You think as Hist is the Sarpent's betrothed, as they call
it, and not mine, it's altogether his affair; and as one man can
paddle a canoe he ought to be left to go after his gal alone! But
you forget this is our ar'n'd here on the lake, and it would not
tell well to forget an ar'n'd just as the pinch came. Then, if
love does count for so much with some people, particularly with
young women, fri'ndship counts for something, too, with other
some. I dares to say, the Delaware can paddle a canoe by himself,
and can bring off Hist by himself, and perhaps he would like that
quite as well, as to have me with him; but he couldn't sarcumvent
sarcumventions, or stir up an ambushment, or fight with the savages,
and get his sweetheart at the same time, as well by himself as if
he had a fri'nd with him to depend on, even if that fri'nd is no
better than myself. No - no - Judith, you wouldn't desert one that
counted on you, at such a moment, and you can't, in reason, expect
me to do it."

"I fear - I believe you are right, Deerslayer, and yet I wish you
were not to go! Promise me one thing, at least, and that is, not
to trust yourself among the savages, or to do anything more than
to save the girl. That will be enough for once, and with that you
ought to be satisfied."

"Lord bless you! gal; one would think it was Hetty that's talking,
and not the quick-witted and wonderful Judith Hutter! But fright