, although the plot development may not be "strictly linear," it is still certainly coherent and makes sense. In addition, Long feels that, as Bewley states, the novel is a way in and through which Cooper presents moral ideas about the plight of the Native Americans (p. 121).
             The story of The Deerslayer is simple. It is novel which tells the events which occur in the travels of a frontiersman. His name is Natty, and he is a young man at only twenty years old. Coming from New York of the eighteenth century, he is unprepared in many ways for what he encounters in the frontier. But he survives, escapes, and learns many things over the course of his adventures.
             The two characters of Natty and Hurry are contrasted in such as way that Cooper presents his view of the Native Americans through them. As earlier indicated, they symbolize two men with differing moral aptitudes. Throughout the novel, the differences between the two show Cooper's feelings about morality as it relates to the American Indians. As Long states, "The voices of the two men calling to one another at the beginning introduces the idea of a world that has lost its coherence, is already reduced to disjunction and fragmentation. Natty and Hurry search for a point of contact yet move in different directions" (p. 122).
             Cooper's descriptions of Natty and Hurry early in the novel make it obvious that they stand for opposite moral values. Hurry, for example, is described by Cooper as having "a dashing, reckless, off-hand manner, and physical restlessness" (Cooper, p. 6). In fact, it is these characteristics of him that gave him his nickname by which he is called - Hurry Scurry, although his real name is Henry March. He is described as tall and muscular, the "grandeur that pervaded such a noble physique" being the only thing that kept him from looking "altogether vulgar" (p. 6). The Deerslayer's appearance, on the other hand, contrasts wi
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