danger
of the beasts breaking through. It became necessary for the trapper
and his companions to become still more and more alert; and they were
gradually yielding before the headlong multitude, when a furious bull
darted by Middleton, so near as to brush his person, and, at the next
instant, swept through the thicket with the velocity of the wind.

"Close, and die for the ground," shouted the old man, "or a thousand of
the devils will be at his heels!"

All their efforts would have proved fruitless, however, against the
living torrent, had not Asinus, whose domains had just been so rudely
entered, lifted his voice, in the midst of the uproar. The most sturdy
and furious of the bulls trembled at the alarming and unknown cry,
and then each individual brute was seen madly pressing from that very
thicket, which, the moment before, he had endeavoured to reach, with the
eagerness with which the murderer seeks the sanctuary.

As the stream divided, the place became clear; the two dark columns
moving obliquely from the copse, to unite again at the distance of
a mile, on its opposite side. The instant the old man saw the sudden
effect which the voice of Asinus had produced, he coolly commenced
reloading his rifle, indulging at the same time in a heartfelt fit of
his silent and peculiar merriment.

"There they go, like dogs with so many half-filled shot-pouches dangling
at their tails, and no fear of their breaking their order; for what the
brutes in the rear didn't hear with their own ears, they'll conceit they
did: besides, if they change their minds, it may be no hard matter to
get the Jack to sing the rest of his tune!"

"The ass has spoken, but Balaam is silent!" cried the bee-hunter,
catching his breath after a repeated burst of noisy mirth, that might
possibly have added to the panic of the buffaloes by its vociferation.
"The man is as completely dumb-founded, as if a swarm of young bees had
settled on the end of his tongue, and he not willing to speak, for fear
of their answer."

"How now, friend," continued the trapper, addressing the still
motionless and entranced naturalist; "how now, friend; are you, who make
your livelihood by booking the names and natur's of the beasts of the
fields and the fowls of the air, frightened at a herd of scampering
buffaloes? Though, perhaps, you are ready to dispute my right to call
them by a word, that is in the mouth of every hunter and trader on the
frontier!"

The old man