thickened, so as to obscure their persons, there was, at each instant,
a renewed 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