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

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. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dog Crusoe and His Master by Robert Michael Ballantyne