6.  They require that when the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.  But this law gets little or no attention in the Deerslayer tale, as Natty Bumppo’s case will amply prove.

7.  They require that when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship’s Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it.  But this rule is flung down and danced upon in the Deerslayer tale.

8.  They require that crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as “the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest,” by either the author or the people in the tale.  But this rule is persistently violated in the Deerslayer tale.

9.  They require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.  But these rules are not respected in the Deerslayer tale.

10.  They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.  But the reader of the Deerslayer tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.

11.  They require that the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.  But in the Deerslayer tale this rule is vacated.

In addition to these large rules there are some little ones.  These require that the author shall: 

12.  Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.

13.  Use the right word, not its second cousin.

14.  Eschew surplusage.

15.  Not omit necessary details.

16.  Avoid slovenliness of form.

17.  Use good grammar.

18.  Employ a simple and straightforward style.

Even these seven are coldly and persistently violated in the Deerslayer tale.

Cooper’s gift in the way of invention was not a rich endowment; but such as it was he liked to work it, he was pleased with the effects, and indeed he did some quite sweet things with it.  In his little box of stage properties he kept six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go.  A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of the moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail.  Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick.  Another stage-property that