than one bullet. Did they dig? No; as we shall see. It is the
Pathfinder’s turn now; he steps out before the ladies, takes aim, and
fires.
But, alas! here is a disappointment; an incredible, an unimaginable
disappointment- for the target’s aspect is unchanged; there is nothing
there but that same old bullet-hole!
“‘If one dared to hint at such a thing,’ cried Major Duncan, ‘I
should say that the Pathfinder has also missed the target!'”
As nobody had missed it yet, the “also” was not necessary; but never mind
about that, for the Pathfinder is going to speak.
“‘No, no, Major,’ said he, confidently, ‘that would be a risky
declaration. I didn’t load the piece, and can’t say what was
in it; but if it was lead, you will find the bullet driving
down those of the Quartermaster and Jasper, else is not my name
Pathfinder.’
“A shout from the target announced the truth of this
assertion.”
Is the miracle sufficient as it stands? Not for Cooper. The Pathfinder
speaks again, as he “now slowly advances towards the stage occupied by
the females”:
“‘That’s not all, boys, that’s not all; if you find the target
touched at all, I’ll own to a miss. The Quartermaster cut the
wood, but you’ll find no wood cut by that last messenger.”
The miracle is at last complete. He knew–doubtless saw–at the distance
of a hundred yards–that his bullet had passed into the hole without
fraying the edges. There were now three bullets in that one hole–three
bullets embedded processionally in the body of the stump back of the
target. Everybody knew this–somehow or other–and yet nobody had dug
any of them out to make sure. Cooper is not a close observer, but he is
interesting. He is certainly always that, no matter what happens. And
he is more interesting when he is not noticing what he is about than when
he is. This is a considerable merit.
The conversations in the Cooper books have a curious sound in our modern
ears. To believe that such talk really ever came out of people’s mouths
would be to believe that there was a time when time was of no value to a
person who thought he had something to say; when it was the custom to
spread a two-minute remark out to ten; when a man’s mouth was a rolling-
mill, and busied itself all day long in turning four-foot pigs of thought
into thirty-foot bars of conversational railroad iron by attenuation;
when subjects were seldom faithfully stuck to, but the talk wandered all
around and arrived nowhere; when conversations consisted mainly of
irrelevancies, with here and there a relevancy, a relevancy with an
embarrassed look, as not being able to explain how it got there.
Cooper was certainly not a master in the construction of dialogue.
Inaccurate observation defeated him here as it defeated him in so many
other enterprises of his. He even failed to notice that the man who
talks corrupt English six days in the week must and will talk it on the
seventh, and can’t help himself. In the Deerslayer story he lets
Deerslayer talk the showiest kind of book-talk sometimes, and at other
times the basest of base dialects. For instance, when some one asks him
if he has a sweetheart, and if so, where she abides, this is his majestic
answer:
“‘She’s in the forest-hanging from the boughs of the trees, in
a soft rain–in the dew on the open grass–the clouds that
float about in the blue heavens–the birds that sing in the
woods–the sweet springs where I slake my thirst–and in all
the other glorious gifts that come from God’s Providence!'”
And he preceded that, a little before, with this:
“‘It consarns me as all things that touches a fri’nd consarns a
fri’nd.'”
And this is another of his remarks:
“‘If I was Injin born, now, I might tell of this, or carry in
the scalp and boast of the expl’ite afore the whole tribe; or
if my inimy had only been a bear'”–and so on.
We cannot imagine such a thing as a veteran Scotch Commander-in-Chief
comporting himself in the field like a windy melodramatic actor, but