and what I mistook as a notice of your coming, has been intended for
something more serious. If the advice of an old man is, then, worth
hearkening to, children, you will quickly go different ways to your
places of shelter and safety."

"If I quit Ellen, at such a moment," exclaimed the youth, "may I--"

"You've said enough!" the girl interrupted, by again interposing a
band that might, both by its delicacy and colour, have graced a far
more elevated station in life; "my time is out; and we must part, at
all events--so good night, Paul--father--good night."

"Hist!" said the youth, seizing her arm, as she was in the very act of
tripping from his side--"Hist! do you hear nothing? There are
buffaloes playing their pranks, at no great distance--That sound beats
the earth like a herd of the mad scampering devils!"

His two companions listened, as people in their situation would be apt
to lend their faculties to discover the meaning of any doubtful
noises, especially, when heard after so many and such startling
warnings. The unusual sounds were unequivocally though still faintly
audible. The youth and his female companion had made several hurried,
and vacillating conjectures concerning their nature, when a current of
the night air brought the rush of trampling footsteps, too sensibly,
to their ears, to render mistake any longer possible.

"I am right!" said the bee-hunter; "a panther is driving a herd before
him; or may be, there is a battle among the beasts."

"Your ears are cheats," returned the old man, who, from the moment his