prairie wolves, in a circle, watching their leader

First published November 1851:

Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him near the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his three mates stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship's company formed a circle round the group; he stood for an instant searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, as the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but, alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian.--Moby-Dick, The Quarter-Deck

First published December 1851:

And did you not know that wolves howl in concert? Did you never see them under the pale moon sit in circle watching their leader as bipeds do? --Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army

beamers

François Boucher, Mercury confiding the Infant Bacchus to the Nymphs
c. 1732-1734 / Wallace Collection Online

"Here Venus never smiles; nor Bacchus grins; nor beams the intelligence of Mercury. Oh gentle Herald that I could fly with thee!" 
-- June 1851 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army

"... a pensive face angelic, downward beaming; and, for one golden moment, gauze-vailed in spangled Berenice’s Locks."  --Mardi: And a Voyage Thither

But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel's face; and this bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the ship's tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into the Victory's plank where Nelson fell. "Ah, noble ship," the angel seemed to say, "beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy helm; for lo! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are rolling off—serenest azure is at hand."  --Moby Dick, The Pulpit

Image Credit: Dover Beach

The beaming part is optional. For example, in his Pulpit Portraits John Dix Ross described the painted angel behind Father Taylor (Melville's model) without any reference to its face or countenance:

High over the mast-head are dark storm-clouds, from one of which a remarkably small angel is seen, with outstretched arms, — the celestial individual having just flung down a golden anchor bigger than itself, to aid the ship in her extremity, we presume, although there is attached to the said anchor but a few inches of California cable, which for any practical purpose would not be of the slightest use. --as quoted in the Life of Father Taylor

typing infinity

"There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves." --Moby-Dick (The Mast-Head)

So Ishmael muses from the mast-head, looking down. Arrived at the Continental Divide, the narrating Captain of U. S. Dragoons looks down from a "lofty bluff" above the South Pass, likewise with ocean and infinity on his mind: 

"A continent is spread beneath me: a new world in ocean-midst: the great ocean, at whose ever-heaving surge — typing infinity — man trembled and forbore many thousand years ...."  --September 1852 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army

Not only the conceit, but also the grammar is close to Melville's--as evidenced in the hyphenated modifier "ever-heaving." Compounds with the intensifier "ever" occur dozens of times in Melville's Pierre. Dozens, really? Let's count 'em. More than twenty-four, actually, since we ought to count "ever-interrupting and ever-marring world" as two.

1. ever-shifting Nature
2. ever-encroaching appetite for God.
3. ever-sweet interpreter [Nature, again]
4. ever-sacred being
5. ever-interrupting and ever-marring world
6. ever-growing business
7. ever-adaptive sort of motive
8. ever-present self
9. ever-nameless
10. ever-sacred memory
11. ever-primeval wilderness
12. ever-creative fire
13. ever-recurring intervals
14. ever-hospitable grave
15. ever-creeping and condensing haze of ambiguities
16. ever-abiding shadows
17. ever-flowing
18. ever-shifting shadowy vistas
19. ever-welling mystery
20. ever-shipwrecked character
21. ever-increasing admiration
22. ever-elastic regions of evanescent invention
23. ever-devouring and omnivorous melancholy
24. ever-baffled artist

And "ocean-midst" (another compound) recalls Pico as Melville had just described it a late chapter of his new novel.

Pico Island viewed from Fajã Grande, Calheta.
José Luís Ávila Silveira/Pedro Noronha e Costa. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

"Pierre is a peak inflexible in the heart of Time, as the isle-peak, Piko, stands unassaultable in the midst of waves." Pierre, or The Ambiguities (August 1852)

“More isles! more isles!” cried Babbalanja, erect, and gazing abroad. “And lo! round all is heaving that infinite ocean."  --Mardi, and A Voyage Thither

past all something

"Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural bearing, ye insult me. It's an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that he's bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say that again to me, and start my soul-bolts, but I'll—I'll—yes, I'll swallow a live goat with all his hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting, drab-coloured son of a wooden gun—a straight wake with ye!"  --Moby-Dick, Ch 16 The Ship

Photo Credit: A Silent Dreamer

I.F. "Ah! gazing at the stars? The three mortal hours we passed on the verge of the table land, whilst the guide sought a clew to this strange labyrinth of hills, or mountains—"

C. "And found it, much thanks to the buffalo, and the aid of their paths—"

I. F. "Were enough, with an empty stomach, to evaporate an ocean of romance."

C. "Considering, too, how dry it was; we had not drank for thirteen hours."

I.F. "Considering, too, you slipped off alone to the island yesterday, and 'fell asleep;' but as I verily believe, only dreamed; for, in our silent ride to overtake the regiment, you were still rapt, past all observation."  --May 1852 Scenes Beyond the Western Border

Love me she doth, thought Pierre, but how? Loveth she me with the love past all understanding? --Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities

 Those must have been hard gales, Don Benito."
"Past all speech," cringed the Spaniard. --Benito Cereno

"All I want is a good listener": promiscuous apostrophe at the start of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border"

The beginning of Typee displays another of Melville's techniques, what can be called promiscuous apostrophe. He begins by addressing the reader directly, fades into soliloquy, and in subsequent paragraphs addresses the rooster, another sailor, and the "poor old ship" itself. The impression created is of a voice ready to fix on any imaginable auditor.  --Bryan C. Short on Melville's Self-Discovery in Typee

Oh reader! "gentle" or not,—I care not a whit,—so you are honest—I will tell you a secret. I write not to be read, and I swear never even to transcribe for your benefit, unless I change my mind. All I want is a good listener; I want to converse with you; and if you are absolutely dumb, why I will sometimes answer for you.

(opening lines of the first installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border," Southern Literary Messenger vol. 17, June 1851, 372; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army, Part II.)

But "Oh reader!" only makes one apostrophe—when does it get promiscuous? From the same first chapter:

Oh, wide and flat,—shall I say "stale and unprofitable"—prairies! ...
Oh, gentle Herald [Mercury], that I could fly with thee!
Oh! ye hypocrites,—demagogues....
"Friend," thought I ....
Oh Truth!
Oh Sirius! thou brightest and nearest sun;
"Immortal man, brave General ———."
Oh Steam!

All these occur in quick succession, right at the start of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border."

Image Credit: Rita's Dog Blog

locomotive bipeds and state-room sailors

Image Credit: Steamboat Times

Point is, they should quit whining:

At the foot of these rapids was a passenger barge in tow of a steam keel-boat, with about twenty passengers, who had already waited some two weeks with Turkish resignation, for fate, or higher water, to forward them on their journey. Genius of railroads! spirit of a travelling age! Think, ye eastern locomotive bipeds, who, spirited over the earth at the rate of 600 miles a day, snarl at the grievous detention of a minute,—think of this, and learn moderation.

--Notes and Reminiscences No. 3 (Army and Navy Chronicle / July 23, 1840); and Scenes and Adventures in the Army (June 1842; 1857)

Deleted from the first page of Typee:

Oh! ye state-room sailors, who make so much ado about a fourteen-days’ passage across the Atlantic; who so pathetically relate the privations and hardships of the sea, where, after a day of breakfasting, lunching, dining off five courses, chatting, playing whist, and drinking champaign punch, it was your hard lot to be shut up in little cabinets of mahogany and maple, and sleep for ten hours, with nothing to disturb you but “ those good-for-nothing tars, shouting and tramping over head,”—what would ye say to our six months out of sight of land?

Cut by Melville along with many other expurgations, the passage above does not appear in the Revised American edition of Typee. On the likely reason for this particular deletion, Bryan C. Short observes:

Removal of the “state-room sailors” passage dispels an early belligerence out of tune with Tommo’s narrative personality in the rest of the work. --Bryan C. Short, "The Author at the Time": Tommo and Melville's Self-Discovery in Typee.

About mortgages

Scored with pencil in Herman Melville's copy of David Dudley Field's History of the County of Berkshire:

Mortgage is certain to prove in the general, what the word signifies, a death-gage to the property upon which it is fastened, and to the prosperity of the man who allows it to be fastened upon his estate.  --Melville's Marginalia Online

This book is inscribed in ink on the front flyleaf:  "H Melville. / Pittsfield July 16, 1850" According to the Documentary Note on this volume at Melville's Marginalia Online, Melville

made notes on the verso of the rear flyleaf that indicate he consulted A History throughout the 1850s, using it as a source for Israel Potter and "The Apple-Tree Table."

Prairie near the Mouth of the St. Peters - Buffalo Hunt / Seth Eastman, 1846-8
Image Credit: Minnesota Historical Society

This unerring and deadly shot after so long and pertinacious a pursuit, gave him credit with us all; until at last, we came up; and there surely lay the bull: but, strange to say, no scrutiny could discover a wound!—and soon the marvel was, how he had lived so long; he had only closed a longstanding mortgage to the crows;—the ardent hunter was not there to dispute possession!  --June 1852 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army

I'm not claiming Field's History of Berkshire inspired "mortgage to the crows," which phrase gets one (and only one?) other hit via Google Books. But Melville had the burden of mortgage on his mind after privately borrowing $2050 from T. D. Stewart in May 1851, on top of his remaining debt for the Arrowhead farm. In his essay "Damned by Dollars" (first published in the 2nd Norton Critical Edition of Moby-Dick; revised and condensed in the 2nd Norton Critical Edition of The Confidence-Man) Hershel Parker examines the details of Melville's financial difficulties and their impact on his writing.

Here's a related gem from the second volume of Parker's Melville biography:

What with Maria's daily reproaches for his religious lapses, Hope's and the younger Shaws' carping criticism of his lost reputation, what with his enormous debts and his defaulting on a payment on 1 May [1852], what with the failure of The Whale and Moby-Dick after publication and the humiliating American contract for Pierre and no English contract for it at all, Melville chose to escape as best he could: he went outdoors into the Berkshire spring. --Herman Melville: A Biography, V2.110

That buffalo hunter with his pertinacious pursuit sounds kind of like a prairie Ahab.