_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, require 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 meantime, 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 grand-son--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 civilized 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.