Looking in the direction indicated by the Doctor,
she beheld, in fact, a beast coursing over the prairie, and making a
straight and rapid approach to the very spot they occupied. The day
was not yet sufficiently advanced to enable her to distinguish its
form and character, though enough was discernible to induce her to
imagine it a fierce and savage animal.
"It comes! it comes!" exclaimed the Doctor, fumbling, by a sort of
instinct, for his tablets, while he fairly tottered on his feet under
the powerful efforts he made to maintain his ground. "Now, Ellen, has
fortune given me an opportunity to correct the errors made by star-
light,--hold,--ashy-plumbeous,--no ears,--horns, excessive." His voice
and hand were both arrested by a roar, or rather a shriek from the
beast, that was sufficiently terrific to appal even a stouter heart
than that of the naturalist. The cries of the animal passed over the
prairie in strange cadences, and then succeeded a deep and solemn
silence, that was only broken by an uncontrolled fit of merriment from
the more musical voice of Ellen Wade.
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