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.
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