mountains, as well as the valleys? are not the woods your own: what right has this chap, or the Leather-stocking, to shoot in your woods, without your permission? Now, I have known a farmer, in Pennsylvania, order a sportsman off his farm, with as little ceremony as I would order Benjamin to put a log in the stove. By-the-by, Benjamin, see how the thermometer stands. Now, if a man has a right to do this on a farm of a hundred acres, what power must a landlord have, who owns sixty thousand—ay! for the matter of that, including the late purchases. a hundred thousand? There is Mohegan, to be-sure, he may have some right, being a native; but it's little the poor fellow can do now with his rifle. How is this managed in France, Monsieur Le Quoi? do you let every body run over your land, in that country, helter skelter, as they do here, shooting the game, so that a gentleman has but little or no chance with his gun?"
"Bah! diable, no, Meester Deeck," replied the Frenchman: "we give, in France, no liberty, except to de ladi."
"Yes, yes, to the women. I know," said Richard; "that is your Sallick law. I read, sir, all kinds of books; of France, as well as England: of Greece, as well as Rome. But if I were in 'duke's place, I would stick up advertisements tomorrow morning, forbidding all persons to shoot, or trespass, in any manner, on my woods. I could write such an advertisement myself, in an hour, as would put a stop to the thing at once."
"Richart," said Major Hartmann, very coolly knocking the ashes from his pipe into the spitting-box by his side, "now listen: I have livet seventy-five years on ter Mohawk, and in ter woods.—You hat petter mettle as mit ter deyvel, as mit ter
