t a sort of compromise. The
humble Asinus, too meek and too weary to make any resistance, was soon
tethered and deposited in his bed of dying grass, where he was left with
a perfect confidence on the part of his master of finding him, again, at
the expiration of a few hours. The old man strongly remonstrated against
this arrangement, and more than once hinted that the knife was much more
certain than the tether, but the petitions of Obed, aided perhaps by the
secret reluctance of the trapper to destroy the beast, were the means
of saving its life. When Asinus was thus secured, and as his master
believed secreted, the whole party proceeded to find some place where
they might rest themselves, during the time required for the repose of
the animal.

According to the calculations of the trapper, they had ridden twenty
miles since the commencement of their flight. The delicate frame of Inez
began to droop under the excessive fatigue, nor was the more robust, but
still feminine person of Ellen, insensible to the extraordinary effort
she had made. Middleton himself was not sorry to repose, nor did the
vigorous and high-spirited Paul hesitate to confess that he should be
all the better for a little rest. The old man alone seemed indifferent
to the usual claims of nature. Although but little accustomed to the
unusual description of exercise he had just been taking, he appeared
to bid defiance to all the usual attacks of human infirmities. Though
evidently so near its dissolution, his attenuated frame still stood like
the shaft of seasoned oak, dry, naked, and tempest-driven, but unbending
and apparently indurated to the consistency of stone. On the present
occasion he conducted the search for a resting-place, which was
immediately commenced, with all the energy of youth, tempered by the
discretion and experience of his great age.

The bed of grass, in which the Doctor had been met, and in which his ass
had just been left, was followed a little distance until it was found
that the rolling swells of the prairie were melting away into one vast
level plain, that was covered, for miles on miles, with the same species
of herbage.

"Ah, this may do, this may do," said the old man, when they arrived on
the borders of this sea of withered grass. "I know the spot, and often
have I lain in its secret holes, for days at a time, while the savages
have been hunting the buffaloes on the open ground. We must enter it
with great care, for a br