that violence of joy that characterizes the mirth of a thoughtless negro.
The wood-chopper had exerted all his art, and felt a proportionate degree of disappointment at his failure. He first examined the bird with the utmost attention, and more than once suggested that he had touched its feathers; but the voice of the multitude was against him, for it felt disposed to listen to the often repeated cries of the black, to "gib a nigger fair play."
Finding it impossible to make out a title to the bird, Kirby turned fiercely to the black, and said—
"Shut your oven, you crow! Where is the man that can hit a turkey's head at a hundred yards? I was a fool for trying. You needn't make an uproar, like a falling pine tree, about it. Show me the man who can do it."
"Look this a-way, Billy Kirby," said Leather-stocking, "and let them clear the mark, and I'll show you a man who's made better shots afore now, and that when he's been hard pressed by the savages and wild beasts."
"Perhaps there is one whose rights come before ours. Leather-stocking "said Miss Temple; "if so, we will waive our privilege."
"If it be me that you have reference to, madam," said the young hunter, "I shell decline another chance. My shoulder is yet weak, I find."
Elizabeth regarded his proud, but forced manner, and even thought that she could discern a tinge on his cheek, that spoke the shame" of conscious poverty. She said no more, but suffered her own champion to make a trial.
Although Natty Bumppo had certainly made hundreds of more momentous shots, at his enemies or his game, yet he never exerted himself more to excel. He raised his piece three several
