CRUSOE'S RETURN AND HIS PRIVATE ADVENTURES AMONG THE INDIANS--DICK AT A
VERY LOW EBB--CRUSOE SAVES HIM.
The means by which Crusoe managed to escape from his two-legged captors,
and rejoin his master, requires separate and special notice.
In the struggle with the fallen horse and Indian, which Dick had seen
begun but not concluded, he was almost crushed to death; and the instant
the Indian gained his feet, he sent an arrow at his head with savage
violence. Crusoe, however, had been so well used to dodging the
blunt-headed arrows that were wont to be shot at him by the boys of the
Mustang Valley, that he was quite prepared, and eluded the shaft by an
active bound. Moreover, he uttered one of his own peculiar roars, flew
at the Indian's throat, and dragged him down. At the same moment the
other Indians came up, and one of them turned aside to the rescue. This
man happened to have an old gun, of the cheap sort at that time
exchanged for peltries by the fur-traders. With the butt of this he
struck Crusoe a blow on the head that sent him sprawling on the grass.
The rest of the savages, as we have seen, continued in pursuit of Dick
until he leaped into the river; then they returned, took the saddle and
bridle off his dead horse, and rejoined their comrades. Here they held
a court-martial on Crusoe, who was now bound, foot and muzzle, with
cords. Some were for killing him; others, who admired his noble
appearance, immense size, and courage, thought it would be well to carry
him to their village and keep him. There was a pretty violent dispute
on the subject; but at length it was agreed that they should spare his
life in the mean time, and perhaps have a dog-dance round him when they
got to their wigwams.
This dance, of which Crusoe was to be the chief, though passive
performer, is peculiar to some of the tribes east of the Rocky
Mountains, and consists in killing a dog and cutting out its liver,
which is afterwards sliced into shreds or strings and hung on a pole
about the height of a man's head. A band of warriors then come and
dance wildly round this pole, and each one in succession goes up to the
raw liver and bites a piece off it, without, however, putting his hands
near it. Such is the dog-dance, and to such was poor Crusoe destined by
his fierce captors, especially by the one whose throat still bore very
evident marks of his teeth.
But Crusoe was much too clever a dog to be disposed of in so disgusting
a manner. He had privately resolved in his own mind that he would
escape, but the hopelessness of his ever carrying that resolution into
effect would have been apparent to any one who could have seen the way
in which his muzzle was secured, and his four paws were tied together in
a bunch, as he hung suspended across the saddle of one of the savages!
This particular party of Indians who had followed Dick Varley determined
not to wait for the return of their comrades who were in pursuit of the
other two hunters, but to go straight home, so for several days they
galloped away over the prairie. At nights, when they encamped, Crusoe
was thrown on the ground like a piece of old lumber, and left to lie
there with a mere scrap of food till morning, when he was again thrown
across the horse of his captor and carried on. When the village was
reached, he was thrown again on the ground, and would certainly have
been torn to pieces in five minutes by the Indian curs which came
howling round him, had not an old woman come to the rescue and driven
them away. With the help of her grandson--a little naked creature, just
able to walk, or rather to stagger--she dragged him to her tent, and,
undoing the line that fastened his mouth, offered him a bone.
Although lying in a position that was unfavourable for eating purposes,
Crusoe opened his jaws and took it. An awful crash was followed by two
crunches--and it was gone; and Crusoe looked up in the old squaw's face
with a look that said plainly, "Another of the same, please, and as
quick as possible." The old woman gave him another and then a lump of
meat, which latter went down with a gulp--but he coughed after it! and
it was well he didn't choke. After this the squaw left him, and Crusoe
spent the remainder of that night gnawing the cords that bound him. So
diligent was he that he was free before morning and walked deliberately
out of the tent. Then he shook himself, and with a yell that one might
have fancied was intended for defiance, he bounded joyfully away, and
was soon out of sight.
To a dog with a good appetite which had been on short allowance for
several days, the mouthful given to him by the old squaw was a mere
nothing. All that day he kept bounding over the plain from bluff to
bluff in search of something to eat, but found nothing until dusk, when
he pounced suddenly and most unexpectedly on a prairie-hen fast asleep.
In one moment its life was gone. In less than a minute its body was
gone too--feathers and bones and all--down Crusoe's ravenous throat.
On the identical spot Crusoe lay down and slept like a top for four
hours. At the end of that time he jumped up, bolted a scrap of skin
that somehow had been overlooked at supper, and flew straight over the
prairie to the spot where he had had the scuffle with the Indian. He
came to the edge of the river, took precisely the same leap that his
master had done before him, and came out on the other side a good deal
higher up than Dick had done, for the dog had no savages to dodge, and
was, as we have said before, a powerful swimmer.
It cost him a good deal of running about to find the trail, and it was
nearly dark before he resumed his journey; then, putting his keen nose
to the ground, he ran step by step over Dick's track, and at last found
him, as we have shown, on the banks of the Salt Creek.
It is quite impossible to describe the intense joy which filled Dick's
heart on again beholding his favourite. Only those who have lost and
found such an one can know it. Dick seized him round the neck and
hugged him as well as he could, poor fellow, in his feeble arms; then he
wept, then he laughed, and then he fainted.
This was a consummation that took Crusoe quite aback! Never having seen
his master in such a state before he seemed to think at first that he
was playing some trick, for he bounded round him, and barked, and wagged
his tail. But as Dick lay quite still and motionless, he went forward
with a look of alarm; snuffed him once or twice and whined piteously;
then he raised his nose in the air and uttered a long melancholy wail.
The cry seemed to revive Dick, for he moved, and with some difficulty
sat up, to the dog's evident relief. There is no doubt whatever that
Crusoe learned an erroneous lesson that day, and was firmly convinced
thenceforth that the best cure for a fainting-fit is a melancholy yell.
So easy is it for the wisest of dogs as well as men to fall into gross
error!
"Crusoe," said Dick, in a feeble voice, "dear good pup, come here." He
crawled, as he spoke, down to the water's edge where there was a level
patch of dry sand.
"Dig," said Dick, pointing to the sand.
Crusoe looked at him in surprise, as well he might, for he had never
heard the word "dig" in all his life before.
Dick pondered a minute; then a thought struck him. He turned up a
little of the sand with his fingers, and, pointing to the hole cried,
"_Seek him out, pup_!"
Ha! Crusoe understood _that_. Many and many a time had he unhoused
rabbits, and squirrels, and other creatures at that word of command, so,
without a moment's delay, he commenced to dig down into the sand, every
now, and then stopping for a moment and shoving in his nose, and
snuffing interrogatively, as if he fully expected to find a buffalo at
the bottom of it. Then he would resume again, one paw after another so
fast that you could scarce see them going "hand over hand" as sailors
would have called it--while the sand flew out between his hind-legs in a
continuous shower. When the sand accumulated so much behind him as to
impede his motions he scraped it out of his way, and set to work again
with tenfold earnestness. After a good while he paused and looked up at
Dick with an "it--won't--do,--I--fear,--there's--nothing--here"
expression on his face.
"Seek him out, pup!" repeated Dick.
"Oh! very good," mutely answered the dog, and went at it again, tooth
and nail, harder than ever.
In the course of a quarter of an hour there was a deep yawning hole in
the sand, into which Dick peered with intense anxiety. The bottom
appeared slightly _damp_. Hope now reanimated Dick Varley, and by
various devices he succeeded in getting the dog to scrape away a sort of
tunnel from the hole, into which he might roll himself and put down his
lips to drink when the water should rise high enough. Impatiently and
anxiously he lay watching the moisture slowly accumulate in the bottom
of the hole, drop by drop, and while he gazed he fell into a troubled,
restless slumber, and dreamed that Crusoe's return was a dream, and that
he was alone again perishing for want of water.
When he awakened the hole was half full of clear water, and Crusoe was
lapping it greedily.
"Back, pup!" he shouted, as he crept down to the hole and put his
trembling lips to the water. It was brackish, but drinkable, and as
Dick drank deeply of it he esteemed it at that moment better than
nectar. Here he lay for half an hour alternately drinking and gazing in
surprise at his own emaciated visage as reflected in the pool.
The same afternoon Crusoe, in a private hunting excursion of his own,
discovered and caught a prairie-hen, which he quietly proceeded to
devour on the spot, when Dick, who saw what had occurred, whistled to
him.
Obedience was engrained in every fibre of Crusoe's mental and corporeal
being. He did not merely answer at once to the call--he _sprang_ to it,
leaving the prairie-hen untasted.
"Fetch it, pup," cried Dick eagerly as the dog came up.
In a few moments the hen was at his feet. Dick's circumstances could
not brook the delay of cookery; he gashed the bird with his knife and
drank the blood, and then gave the flesh to the dog, while he crept to
the pool again for another draught. Ah! think not, reader, that
although we have treated this subject in a slight vein of pleasantry,
because it ended well, that therefore our tale is pure fiction. Not
only are Indians glad to satisfy the urgent cravings of hunger with raw
flesh, but many civilised men and delicately nurtured, have done the
same--ay, and doubtless, will do the same again, as long as enterprising
and fearless men shall go forth to dare the dangers of flood and field
in the wild places of our wonderful world!
Crusoe had finished his share of the feast before Dick returned from the
pool. Then master and dog lay down together side by side and fell into
a long, deep, peaceful slumber.