The pause was only momentary, however; and long before the drowsy eyes of the sentinel, who overlooked the spot where she stood, had time to catch a glimpse of her active form, it had glided along the bottom, and stood on the summit of the nearest eminence.
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!