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Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

"The Prairie"

I'll warrant ye, had your thievish
devils made their push by the light of the sun, the good woman would
have been smartly at work among them, and the Siouxes would have found
she was not given to part with her cheese and her butter without a
price. But there'll come a time, stranger, right soon, when justice
will have its dues, and that too, without the help of what is called
the law. We ar' of a slow breed, it may be said, and it is often said,
of us; but slow is sure; and there ar' few men living, who can say
they ever struck a blow, that they did not get one as hard in return,
from Ishmael Bush."
"Then has Ishmael Bush followed the instinct of the beasts rather than
the principle which ought to belong to his kind," returned the
stubborn trapper. "I have struck many a blow myself, but never have I
felt the same ease of mind that of right belongs to a man who follows
his reason, after slaying even a fawn when there was no call for his
meat or hide, as I have felt at leaving a Mingo unburied in the woods,
when following the trade of open and honest warfare.


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