_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
extemporized 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 door-step, 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 if 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.
* * * * *
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 Yellowstone 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.
THE END.