et me record its
appearance," fumbling for his tablets with hands that trembled too much
to perform their office, "while time and opportunity are allowed--eyes,
enthralling; colour, various, complex, and profound--"

"One would think the man was craz'd, with his enthralling looks and
pieball'd colours!" interrupted the discontented trapper, who began to
grow a little uneasy that his party was all this time neglecting to seek
the protection of some cover. "If there is a reptile in the brush, show
me the creatur', and should it refuse to depart peaceably, why there
must be a quarrel for the possession of the place."

"There!" said the Doctor, pointing into a dense mass of the thicket,
to a spot within fifty feet of that where they both stood. The trapper
turned his look, with perfect composure, in the required direction, but
the instant his practised glance met the object which had so utterly
upset the philosophy of the naturalist, he gave a start himself, threw
his rifle rapidly forward, and as instantly recovered it, as if a second
flash of thought convinced him he was wrong. Neither the instinctive
movement, nor the sudden recollection, was without a sufficient object.
At the very margin of the thicket, and in absolute contact with the
earth, lay an animate ball, that might easily, by the singularity and
fierceness of its aspect, have justified the disturbed condition of the
naturalist's mind. It were difficult to describe the shape or colours of
this extraordinary substance, except to say, in general terms, that
it was nearly spherical, and exhibited all the hues of the rainbow,
intermingled without reference to harmony, and without any very
ostensible design. The predominant hues were a black and a bright
vermilion. With these, however, the several tints of white, yellow, and
crimson, were strangely and wildly blended. Had this been all, it would
have been difficult to have pronounced that the object was possessed of
life, for it lay motionless as any stone; but a pair of dark, glaring,
and moving eyeballs which watched with jealousy the smallest movement
of the trapper and his companion, sufficiently established the important
fact of its possessing vitality.

"Your reptile is a scouter, or I'm no judge of Indian paints and Indian
deviltries!" muttered the old man, dropping the butt of his weapon to
the ground, and gazing with a steady eye at the frightful object, as he
leaned on its barrel, in an attitude of great