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