f the smaller birds, whose
extended flanks are so often seen to heave up out of the abyss of the
heavens, until they appear as countless as the leaves in those forests,
over which they wing their endless flight. Clouds of dust shot up in
little columns from the centre of the mass, as some animal, more furious
than the rest, ploughed the plain with his horns, and, from time to
time, a deep hollow bellowing was borne along on the wind, as if a
thousand throats vented their plaints in a discordant murmuring.

A long and musing silence reigned in the party, as they gazed on this
spectacle of wild and peculiar grandeur. It was at length broken by the
trapper, who, having been long accustomed to similar sights, felt less
of its influence, or, rather, felt it in a less thrilling and absorbing
manner, than those to whom the scene was more novel.

"There go ten thousand oxen in one drove, without keeper or master,
except Him who made them, and gave them these open plains for their
pasture! Ay, it is here that man may see the proofs of his wantonness
and folly! Can the proudest governor in all the States go into his
fields, and slaughter a nobler bullock than is here offered to the
meanest hand; and when he has gotten his sirloin, or his steak, can
he eat it with as good a relish as he who has sweetened his food
with wholesome toil, and earned it according to the law of natur', by
honestly mastering that which the Lord hath put before him?"

"If the prairie platter is smoking with a buffaloe's hump, I answer,
No," interrupted the luxurious bee-hunter.

"Ay, boy, you have tasted, and you feel the genuine reasoning of the
thing! But the herd is heading a little this-a-way, and it behoves us to
make ready for their visit. If we hide ourselves, altogether, the horned
brutes will break through the place and trample us beneath their feet,
like so many creeping worms; so we will just put the weak ones apart,
and take post, as becomes men and hunters, in the van."

As there was but little time to make the necessary arrangements, the
whole party set about them in good earnest. Inez and Ellen were placed
in the edge of the thicket on the side farthest from the approaching
herd. Asinus was posted in the centre, in consideration of his nerves,
and then the old man, with his three male companions, divided themselves
in such a manner as they thought would enable them to turn the head
of the rushing column, should it chance to approach too