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 nigh
their position. By the vacillating movements of some fifty or a
hundred bulls, that led the advance, it remained questionable, for
many moments, what course they intended to pursue. But a tremendous
and painful roar, which came from behind the cloud of dust that rose
in the centre of the herd, and which was horridly answered by the
screams of the carrion birds, that were greedily sailing directly
above the flying drove, appeared to give a new impulse to their
flight, and at once to remove every symptom of indecision. As if glad
to seek the smallest signs of the forest, the whole of the affrighted
herd became steady in its direction, rushing in a straight line toward
the little cover of bushes, which has already been so often named.

The appearance of danger was now, in reality, of a character to try
the stoutest nerves. The flanks of the dark, moving mass, were
advanced in such a manner as to make a concave line of the front, and
every fierce eye, that was glaring from the shaggy wilderness of hair
in which the entire heads of the males were enveloped, was riveted
with mad anxiety on the thicket. It seemed as if each beast strove to
outstrip his neighbour, in gaining this desired cover; and as