James Fenimore Cooper's Frontier: The Pioneers as History

Chapter 26:

 [Beauty of the Catskills] Judge Temple and Richard Jones set forth on their 

expedition. Elizabeth Temple and Louisa Grant decide on a walk in the woods, accompanied by 

her mastiff "Brave". Oliver Edwards offers to escort them, but is refused; he goes boating instead 

and rows to Natty Bumppo's cabin (in what is now Fairy Spring Park), where he goes inside. As 

he leaves the cabin Natty's tied-up hounds are barking, and Edwards sees Hiram Doolittle 

skulking in the bushes. He returns to his boat and goes fishing; off Point Judith he encounters 

Natty and John Mohegan canoeing. Natty says Otsego Lake is the finest place he knows, and 

mourns the old days before settlers came. The only place he ever liked better was in the 

Catskills, which he had visited during the Revolution; he describes in loving detail an overlook 

above the Hudson and the nearby Kaaterskill Falls. Natty's hounds are heard chasing an animal; 

he is surprised because he thought them safely tied up at the cabin. A buck springs into the Lake, 

followed by the hounds.