The Prairie (12 page)

Ellen now listened intently anxious to catch some other sound, than the
breathing of the morning air, which faintly rustled the herbage at her
feet. She was about to turn in disappointment from the enquiry, when the
tread of human feet making their way through the matted grass met her
ear. Springing eagerly forward, she soon beheld the outlines of a figure
advancing up the eminence, on the side opposite to the camp. She had
already uttered the name of Paul, and was beginning to speak in the
hurried and eager voice with which female affection is apt to greet a
friend, when, drawing back, the disappointed girl closed her salutation
by coldly adding—"I did not expect, Doctor, to meet you at this unusual
hour."

"All hours and all seasons are alike, my good Ellen, to the genuine
lover of nature,"—returned a small, slightly made, but exceedingly
active man, dressed in an odd mixture of cloth and skins, a little
past the middle age, and who advanced directly to her side, with the
familiarity of an old acquaintance; "and he who does not know how to
find things to admire by this grey light, is ignorant of a large portion
of the blessings he enjoys."

"Very true," said Ellen, suddenly recollecting the necessity of
accounting for her own appearance abroad at that unseasonable hour; "I
know many who think the earth has a pleasanter look in the night, than
when seen by the brightest sunshine."

"Ah! Their organs of sight must be too convex! But the man who wishes
to study the active habits of the feline race, or the variety, albinos,
must, indeed, be stirring at this hour. I dare say, there are men who
prefer even looking at objects by twilight, for the simple reason, that
they see better at that time of the day."

"And is this the cause why you are so much abroad in the night?"

"I am abroad at night, my good girl, because the earth in its diurnal
revolutions leaves the light of the sun but half the time on any given
meridian, and because what I have to do cannot be performed in twelve or
fifteen consecutive hours. Now have I been off two days from the family,
in search of a plant, that is known to exist on the tributaries of
La Platte, without seeing even a blade of grass that is not already
enumerated and classed."

"You have been unfortunate, Doctor, but—"

"Unfortunate!" echoed the little man, sideling nigher to his companion,
and producing his tablets with an air in which exultation struggled,
strangely, with an affectation of self-abasement. "No, no, Ellen, I am
any thing but unfortunate. Unless, indeed, a man may be so called, whose
fortune is made, whose fame may be said to be established for ever,
whose name will go down to posterity with that of Buffon—Buffon! a mere
compiler: one who flourishes on the foundation of other men's labours.
No; pari passu with Solander, who bought his knowledge with pain and
privations!"

"Have you discovered a mine, Doctor Bat?"

"More than a mine; a treasure coined, and fit for instant use,
girl.—Listen! I was making the angle necessary to intersect the line of
your uncle's march, after my fruitless search, when I heard sounds like
the explosion produced by fire arms—"

"Yes," exclaimed Ellen, eagerly, "we had an alarm—"

"And thought I was lost," continued the man of science too much bent on
his own ideas, to understand her interruption. "Little danger of that!
I made my own base, knew the length of the perpendicular by calculation,
and to draw the hypothenuse had nothing to do but to work my angle. I
supposed the guns were fired for my benefit, and changed my course
for the sounds—not that I think the sense more accurate, or even as
accurate as a mathematical calculation, but I feared that some of the
children might need my services."

"They are all happily—"

"Listen," interrupted the other, already forgetting his affected anxiety
for his patients, in the greater importance of the present subject. "I
had crossed a large tract of prairie—for sound is conveyed far where
there is little obstruction—when I heard the trampling of feet, as if
bisons were beating the earth. Then I caught a distant view of a herd
of quadrupeds, rushing up and down the swells—animals, which would
have still remained unknown and undescribed, had it not been for a most
felicitous accident! One, and he a noble specimen of the whole! was
running a little apart from the rest. The herd made an inclination in my
direction, in which the solitary animal coincided, and this brought
him within fifty yards of the spot where I stood. I profited by the
opportunity, and by the aid of steel and taper, I wrote his description
on the spot. I would have given a thousand dollars, Ellen, for a single
shot from the rifle of one of the boys!"

"You carry a pistol, Doctor, why didn't you use it?" said the half
inattentive girl, anxiously examining the prairie, but still lingering
where she stood, quite willing to be detained.

"Ay, but it carries nothing but the most minute particles of lead,
adapted to the destruction of the larger insects and reptiles. No, I did
better than to attempt waging a war, in which I could not be the
victor. I recorded the event; noting each particular with the precision
necessary to science. You shall hear, Ellen; for you are a good and
improving girl, and by retaining what you learn in this way, may yet be
of great service to learning, should any accident occur to me. Indeed,
my worthy Ellen, mine is a pursuit, which has its dangers as well as
that of the warrior. This very night," he continued, glancing his eye
behind him, "this awful night, has the principle of life, itself, been
in great danger of extinction!"

"By what?"

"By the monster I have discovered. It approached me often, and ever as I
receded, it continued to advance. I believe nothing but the little
lamp, I carried, was my protector. I kept it between us, whilst I wrote,
making it serve the double purpose of luminary and shield. But you shall
hear the character of the beast, and you may then judge of the risks we
promoters of science run in behalf of mankind."

The naturalist raised his tablets to the heavens, and disposed himself
to read as well as he could, by the dim light they yet shed upon the
plain; premising with saying—

"Listen, girl, and you shall hear, with what a treasure it has been my
happy lot to enrich the pages of natural history!"

"Is it then a creature of your forming?" said Ellen, turning away from
her fruitless examination, with a sudden lighting of her sprightly blue
eyes, that showed she knew how to play with the foible of her learned
companion.

"Is the power to give life to inanimate matter the gift of man? I would
it were! You should speedily see a Historia Naturalis Americana, that
would put the sneering imitators of the Frenchman, De Buffon, to shame!
A great improvement might be made in the formation of all quadrupeds;
especially those in which velocity is a virtue. Two of the inferior
limbs should be on the principle of the lever; wheels, perhaps, as they
are now formed; though I have not yet determined whether the improvement
might be better applied to the anterior or posterior members, inasmuch
as I am yet to learn whether dragging or shoving requires the greatest
muscular exertion. A natural exudation of the animal might assist in
overcoming the friction, and a powerful momentum be obtained. But all
this is hopeless—at least for the present!"—he added, raising his
tablets again to the light, and reading aloud; "Oct. 6, 1805. that's
merely the date, which I dare say you know better than I—mem.
Quadruped; seen by star-light, and by the aid of a pocket-lamp, in
the prairies of North America—see Journal for Latitude and Meridian.
Genus—unknown; therefore named after the discoverer, and from the
happy coincidence of being seen in the evening—Vespertilio Horribilis,
Americanus. Dimensions (by estimation)—Greatest length, eleven feet;
height, six feet; head, erect; nostrils, expansive; eyes, expressive
and fierce; teeth, serrated and abundant; tail, horizontal, waving,
and slightly feline; feet, large and hairy; talons, long, curvated,
dangerous; ears, inconspicuous; horns, elongated, diverging, and
formidable; colour, plumbeous-ashy, with fiery spots; voice, sonorous,
martial, and appalling; habits, gregarious, carnivorous, fierce, and
fearless. There," exclaimed Obed, when he had ended this sententious but
comprehensive description, "there is an animal, which will be likely to
dispute with the lion his title to be called the king of the beasts!"

"I know not the meaning of all you have said, Doctor Battius," returned
the quick-witted girl, who understood the weakness of the philosopher,
and often indulged him with a title he loved so well to hear; "but I
shall think it dangerous to venture far from the camp, if such monsters
are prowling over the prairies."

"You may well call it prowling," returned the naturalist, nestling still
closer to her side, and dropping his voice to such low and undignified
tones of confidence, as conveyed a meaning still more pointed than
he had intended. "I have never before experienced such a trial of the
nervous system; there was a moment, I acknowledge, when the fortiter in
re faltered before so terrible an enemy; but the love of natural science
bore me up, and brought me off in triumph!"

"You speak a language so different from that we use in Tennessee," said
Ellen, struggling to conceal her laughter, "that I hardly know whether
I understand your meaning. If I am right, you wish to say you were
chicken-hearted."

"An absurd simile drawn from an ignorance of the formation of the biped.
The heart of a chicken has a just proportion to its other organs, and
the domestic fowl is, in a state of nature, a gallant bird. Ellen," he
added, with a countenance so solemn as to produce an impression on the
attentive girl, "I was pursued, hunted, and in a danger that I scorn to
dwell on—what's that?"

Ellen started; for the earnestness and simple sincerity of her
companion's manner had produced a certain degree of credulity, even on
her buoyant mind. 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. In the mean time the naturalist stood
like a statue of amazement, permitting a well-grown ass, against whose
approach he no longer offered his boasted shield of light, to smell
about his person, without comment or hinderance.

"It is your own ass," cried Ellen, the instant she found breath for
words; "your own patient, hard working, hack!"

The Doctor rolled his eyes from the beast to the speaker, and from the
speaker to the beast; but gave no audible expression of his wonder.

"Do you refuse to know an animal that has laboured so long in your
service?" continued the laughing girl. "A beast, that I have heard you
say a thousand times, has served you well, and whom you loved like a
brother!"

"Asinus Domesticus!" ejaculated the Doctor, drawing his breath like one
who had been near suffocation. "There is no doubt of the genus; and I
will always maintain that the animal is not of the species, equus.
This is undeniably Asinus himself, Ellen Wade; but this is not the
Vespertilio Horribilis of the prairies! Very different animals, I
can assure you, young woman, and differently characterized in every
important particular. That, carnivorous," he continued, glancing his
eye at the open page of his tablets; "this, granivorous; habits, fierce,
dangerous; habits, patient, abstemious; ears, inconspicuous; ears,
elongated; horns, diverging, &c., horns, none!"

He was interrupted by another burst of merriment from Ellen, which
served, in some measure, to recall him to his recollection.

"The image of the Vespertilio was on the retina," the astounded enquirer
into the secrets of nature observed, in a manner that seemed a little
apologetic, "and I was silly enough to mistake my own faithful beast for
the monster. Though even now I greatly marvel to see this animal running
at large!"

Ellen then proceeded to explain the history of the attack and its
results. She described, with an accuracy that might have raised
suspicions of her own movements in the mind of one less simple than her
auditor, the manner in which the beasts burst out of the encampment,
and the headlong speed with which they had dispersed themselves over
the open plain. Although she forebore to say as much in terms, she
so managed as to present before the eyes of her listener the strong
probability of his having mistaken the frightened drove for savage
beasts, and then terminated her account by a lamentation for their loss,
and some very natural remarks on the helpless condition in which it
had left the family. The naturalist listened in silent wonder, neither
interrupting her narrative nor suffering a single exclamation of
surprise to escape him. The keen-eyed girl, however, saw that as she
proceeded, the important leaf was torn from the tablets, in a manner
which showed that their owner had got rid of his delusion at the same
instant. From that moment the world has heard no more of the Vespertilio
Horribilis Americanus, and the natural sciences have irretrievably lost
an important link in that great animated chain which is said to connect
earth and heaven, and in which man is thought to be so familiarly
complicated with the monkey.