REJOICINGS--THE FEAST AT THE BLOCK-HOUSE--GRUMPS AND CRUSOE COME OUT
STRONG--THE CLOSING SCENE.
The day of Dick's arrival with his companions was a great day in the
annals of the Mustang Valley, and Major Hope resolved to celebrate it by
an impromptu festival at the old block-house; for many hearts in the
valley had been made glad that day, and he knew full well that, under
such circumstances, some safety-valve must be devised for the escape of
overflowing excitement.
A messenger was sent round to invite the population to assemble without
delay in front of the block-house. With backwoods-like celerity the
summons was obeyed; men, women, and children hurried towards the central
point wondering, yet more than half suspecting, what was the major's
object in calling them together.
They were not long in doubt. The first sight that presented itself as
they came trooping up the slope in front of the log hut, was an ox
roasting whole before a gigantic bonfire. Tables were being
extemporised on the broad level plot in front of the gate. Other fires
there were, of smaller dimensions, on which sundry steaming pots were
placed, and various joints of wild horse, bear, and venison roasted, and
sent forth a savoury odour as well as a pleasant hissing noise. The
inhabitants of the block-house were self-taught brewers, and the result
of their recent labours now stood displayed in a row of goodly casks of
beer--the only beverage with which the dwellers in these far-off regions
were wont to regale themselves.
The whole scene--as the cooks moved actively about upon the lawn, and
children romped round the fires, and settlers came flocking through the
forests--might have recalled the revelry of merry England in the olden
time, though the costumes of the far west were, perhaps, somewhat
different from those of old England.
No one of all the band assembled there on that day of rejoicing required
to ask what it was all about. Had any one been in doubt for a moment, a
glance at the centre of the crowd assembled round the gate of the
western fortress would have quickly enlightened him; for there stood
Dick Varley, and his mild-looking mother, and his loving dog, Crusoe.
There, too, stood Joe Blunt, like a bronzed warrior returned from the
fight, turning from one to another as question poured in upon question
almost too rapidly to permit of a reply. There, too, stood Henri,
making enthusiastic speeches to whoever chose to listen to him,--now
glaring at the crowd, with clenched fists and growling voice, as he told
of how Joe and he had been tied hand and foot, and lashed to poles and
buried in leaves, and threatened with a slow death by torture,--at other
times bursting into a hilarious laugh as he held forth on the
predicament of Mahtawa when that wily chief was treed by Crusoe in the
prairie.
Young Marston was there too, hanging about Dick, whom he loved as a
brother and regarded as a perfect hero. Grumps, too, was there, and
Fan. Do you think, reader, that Grumps looked at any one but Crusoe?
If you do you are mistaken. Grumps on that day became a regular, an
incorrigible, utter, and perfect nuisance to everybody--not excepting
himself, poor beast! Grumps was a dog of one idea, and that idea was
Crusoe. Out of that great idea there grew one little secondary idea,
and that idea was, that the only joy on earth worth mentioning was to
sit on his haunches, exactly six inches from Crusoe's nose, and gaze
steadfastly into his face. Wherever Crusoe went Grumps went. If Crusoe
stopped Grumps was down before him in an instant. If Crusoe bounded
away, which, in the exuberance of his spirits, he often did, Grumps was
after him like a bundle of mad hair. He was in everybody's way--in
Crusoe's way, and being, so to speak, "beside himself," was also in his
own way. If people trod upon him accidentally, which they often did,
Grumps uttered a solitary heart-rending yell, proportioned in intensity
to the excruciating nature of the torture he endured, then instantly
resumed his position and his fascinated stare. Crusoe generally held
his head up, and gazed over his little friend at what was going on
around him, but if for a moment he permitted his eye to rest on the
countenance of Grumps, that creature's tail became suddenly imbued with
an amount of wriggling vitality that seemed to threaten its separation
from the body.
It was really quite interesting to watch this unblushing, and
disinterested, and utterly reckless display of affection on the part of
Grumps, and the amiable way in which Crusoe put up with it--we say put
up with it, advisedly, because it must have been a very great
inconvenience to him, seeing that if he attempted to move, his satellite
moved in front of him, so that his only way of escaping, temporarily,
was by jumping over Grumps's head.
Grumps was everywhere all day. Nobody, almost, escaped trampling on
part of him. He tumbled over everything, into everything, and against
everything. He knocked himself, singed himself, and scalded himself,
and in fact forgot himself altogether; and when, late that night, Crusoe
went with Dick into his mother's cottage, and the door was shut, Grumps
stretched his ruffled, battered, ill-used, and dishevelled little body
down on the doorstep, thrust his nose against the opening below the
door, and lay in humble contentment all night, for he knew that Crusoe
was there.
Of course such an occasion could not pass without a shooting match.
Rifles were brought out after the feast was over, just before the sun
went down into its bed on the western prairies, and "the nail" was soon
surrounded by bullets, tipped by Joe Blunt and Jim Scraggs, and, of
course, driven home by Dick Varley, whose silver rifle had now become,
in its owner's hand, a never-failing weapon. Races, too, were started,
and here again Dick stood pre-eminent, and when night spread her dark
mantle over the scene, the two best fiddlers in the settlement were
placed on empty beer-casks, and some danced by the light of the monster
fires, while others listened to Joe Blunt as he recounted their
adventures on the prairies and among the Rocky Mountains.
There were sweethearts, and wives, and lovers at the feast, but we
question whether any heart there was so full of love, and admiration,
and gratitude as that of the Widow Varley as she watched her son Dick,
throughout that merry evening.
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Years rolled by, and the Mustang Valley prospered. Missionaries went
there, and a little church was built, and to the blessings of a fertile
land were added the far greater blessings of Christian light and
knowledge. One sad blow fell on the Widow Varley's heart. Her only
brother, Daniel Hood, was murdered by the Indians. Deeply and long she
mourned, and it required all Dick's efforts and those of the pastor of
the settlement to comfort her. But from the first the widow's heart was
sustained by the loving hand that dealt the blow, and when time blunted
the keen edge of her feelings, her face became as sweet and mild, though
not so lightsome, as before.
Joe Blunt and Henri became leading men in the councils of the Mustang
Valley, but Dick Varley preferred the woods, although, as long as his
mother lived, he hovered round her cottage--going off sometimes for a
day, sometimes for a week, but never longer. After her head was laid in
the dust, Dick took altogether to the woods with Crusoe and Charlie the
wild horse as his only companions, and his mother's Bible in the breast
of his hunting shirt. And soon Dick, the bold hunter, and his dog
Crusoe, became renowned in the frontier settlements from the banks of
the Yellow Stone River to the Gulf of Mexico.
Many a grizzly bear did the famous "silver rifle" lay low, and many a
wild exciting chase and adventure did Dick go through, but during his
occasional visits to the Mustang Valley, he was wont to say to Joe Blunt
and Henri--with whom he always sojourned--that "nothin' he ever felt or
saw came up to his first grand dash over the Western Prairies into the
heart of the Rocky Mountains." And in saying this, with enthusiasm in
his eye and voice, Dick invariably appealed to, and received a ready
affirmative glance from, his early companion, and his faithful loving
friend--the dog Crusoe.