The Dog Crusoe and His Master: A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies, - [books for new readers .TXT] 📗

in a blaze of glory.

With a shout of enthusiasm, several of the younger
members of the party sprang forward into the plain
at a gallop; but the shout was mingled with one of a
different tone from the older men.

"Hist!--hallo!--hold on, ye catamounts! There's
Injuns ahead!"

The whole band came to a sudden halt at this cry,
and watched eagerly, and for some time in silence, the
motions of a small party of horsemen who were seen in
the far distance, like black specks on the golden sky.

"They come this way, I think," said Major Hope,
after gazing steadfastly at them for some minutes.

Several of the old hands signified their assent to this
suggestion by a grunt, although to unaccustomed eyes
the objects in question looked more like crows than
horsemen, and their motion was for some time scarcely
perceptible.


"I sees pack-horses among them," cried young Marston
in an excited tone; "an' there's three riders; but
there's som'thin' else, only wot it be I can't tell."

"Ye've sharp eyes, younker," remarked one of the
men, "an' I do b'lieve ye're right."

Presently the horsemen approached, and soon there
was a brisk fire of guessing as to who they could be.
It was evident that the strangers observed the cavalcade
of white men, and regarded them as friends, for they
did not check the headlong speed at which they approached.
In a few minutes they were clearly made out
to be a party of three horsemen driving pack-horses
before them, and somethin' which some of the hunters
guessed was a buffalo calf.

Young Marston guessed too, but his guess was different.
Moreover, it was uttered with a yell that would
have done credit to the fiercest of all the savages.
"Crusoe!" he shouted, while at the same moment he
brought his whip heavily down on the flank of his little
horse, and sprang over the prairie like an arrow.

One of the approaching horsemen was far ahead of
his comrades, and seemed as if encircled with the flying
and voluminous mane of his magnificent horse.

"Ha! ho!" gasped Marston in a low tone to himself,
as he flew along. "Crusoe! I'd know ye, dog,
among a thousand! A buffalo calf! Ha! git on with
ye!"

This last part of the remark was addressed to his
horse, and was followed by a whack that increased the
pace considerably.

The space between two such riders was soon devoured.

"Hallo! Dick--Dick Varley!"

"Eh! why, Marston, my boy!"

The friends reined up so suddenly that one might
have fancied they had met like the knights of old in the
shock of mortal conflict.

"Is't yerself, Dick Varley?"

Dick held out his hand, and his eyes glistened, but he
could not find words.

Marston seized it, and pushing his horse close up,
vaulted nimbly off and alighted on Charlie's back behind
his friend.

"Off ye go, Dick! I'll take ye to yer mother."

Without reply, Dick shook the reins, and in another
minute was in the midst of the hunters.

To the numberless questions that were put to him he
only waited to shout aloud, "We're all safe! They'll
tell ye all about it," he added, pointing to his comrades,
who were now close at hand; and then, dashing onward,
made straight for home, with little Marston clinging to
his waist like a monkey.

Charlie was fresh, and so was Crusoe, so you may be
sure it was not long before they all drew up opposite
the door of the widow's cottage. Before Dick could
dismount, Marston had slipped off, and was already in
the kitchen.

"Here's Dick, mother!"

The boy was an orphan, and loved the widow so much
that he had come at last to call her mother.

Before another word could be uttered, Dick Varley
was in the room. Marston immediately stepped out and
softly shut the door. Reader, we shall not open it!

Having shut the door, as we have said, Marston ran
down to the edge of the lake and yelled with delight--usually
terminating each paroxysm with the Indian war-whoop,
with which he was well acquainted. Then he
danced, and then he sat down on a rock, and became
suddenly aware that there were other hearts there, close
beside him, as glad as his own. Another mother of the
Mustang Valley was rejoicing over a long-lost son.

Crusoe and his mother Fan were scampering round
each other in a manner that evinced powerfully the
strength of their mutual affection.

Talk of holding converse! Every hair on Crusoe's
body, every motion of his limbs, was eloquent with
silent language. He gazed into his mother's mild eyes
as if he would read her inmost soul (supposing that she
had one). He turned his head to every possible angle,
and cocked his ears to every conceivable elevation, and
rubbed his nose against Fan's, and barked softly, in
every imaginable degree of modulation, and varied these
proceedings by bounding away at full speed over the
rocks of the beach, and in among the bushes and out
again, but always circling round and round Fan, and
keeping her in view!

It was a sight worth seeing, and young Marston sat
down on a rock, deliberately and enthusiastically, to
gloat over it. But perhaps the most remarkable part
of it has not yet been referred to. There was yet
another heart there that was glad--exceeding glad that
day. It was a little one too, but it was big for the
body that held it. Grumps was there, and all that
Grumps did was to sit on his haunches and stare at Fan
and Crusoe, and wag his tail as well as he could in so
awkward a position! Grumps was evidently bewildered
with delight, and had lost nearly all power to express
it. Crusoe's conduct towards him, too, was not calculated
to clear his faculties. Every time he chanced to pass
near Grumps in his elephantine gambols, he gave him
a passing touch with his nose, which always knocked
him head over heels; whereat Grumps invariably got
up quickly and wagged his tail with additional energy.
Before the feelings of those canine friends were calmed,
they were all three ruffled into a state of comparative
exhaustion.

Then young Marston called Crusoe to him, and
Crusoe, obedient to the voice of friendship, went.

"Are you happy, my dog?"

"You're a stupid fellow to ask such a question; however
it's an amiable one. Yes, I am."

"What do you want, ye small bundle o' hair?"

This was addressed to Grumps, who came forward
innocently, and sat down to listen to the conversation.

On being thus sternly questioned the little dog put
down its ears flat, and hung its head, looking up at the
same time with a deprecatory look, as if to say, "Oh
dear, I beg pardon. I--I only want to sit near Crusoe,
please; but if you wish it, I'll go away, sad and lonely,
with my tail very much between my legs; indeed I will,
only say the word, but--but I'd rather stay if I might."

"Poor bundle!" said Marston, patting its head, "you
can stay then. Hooray! Crusoe, are you happy, I
say? Does your heart bound in you like a cannon ball
that wants to find its way out, and can't, eh?"
Crusoe put his snout against Marston's cheek, and in
the excess of his joy the lad threw his arms round the
dog's neck and hugged it vigorously--a piece of impulsive
affection which that noble animal bore with characteristic
meekness, and which Grumps regarded with idiotic
satisfaction.



CHAPTER XXVII.


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