CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
REJOICINGS--THE FEAST AT THE BLOCK-HOUSE--GRUMPS AND CRUSOE COME OUTSTRONG--THE CLOSING SCENE.
The day of Dick's arrival with his companions was a great day in theannals of the Mustang Valley, and Major Hope resolved to celebrate it byan impromptu festival at the old block-house; for many hearts in thevalley had been made glad that day, and he knew full well that, undersuch circumstances, some safety-valve must be devised for the escape ofoverflowing excitement.
A messenger was sent round to invite the population to assemble withoutdelay in front of the block-house. With backwoods-like celerity thesummons was obeyed; men, women, and children hurried towards the centralpoint wondering, yet more than half suspecting, what was the major'sobject in calling them together.
They were not long in doubt. The first sight that presented itself asthey came trooping up the slope in front of the log hut, was an oxroasting whole before a gigantic bonfire. Tables were beingextemporised on the broad level plot in front of the gate. Other firesthere were, of smaller dimensions, on which sundry steaming pots wereplaced, and various joints of wild horse, bear, and venison roasted, andsent forth a savoury odour as well as a pleasant hissing noise. Theinhabitants of the block-house were self-taught brewers, and the resultof their recent labours now stood displayed in a row of goodly casks ofbeer--the only beverage with which the dwellers in these far-off regionswere wont to regale themselves.
The whole scene--as the cooks moved actively about upon the lawn, andchildren romped round the fires, and settlers came flocking through theforests--might have recalled the revelry of merry England in the oldentime, though the costumes of the far west were, perhaps, somewhatdifferent from those of old England.
No one of all the band assembled there on that day of rejoicing requiredto ask what it was all about. Had any one been in doubt for a moment, aglance at the centre of the crowd assembled round the gate of thewestern fortress would have quickly enlightened him; for there stoodDick Varley, and his mild-looking mother, and his loving dog, Crusoe.There, too, stood Joe Blunt, like a bronzed warrior returned from thefight, turning from one to another as question poured in upon questionalmost too rapidly to permit of a reply. There, too, stood Henri,making enthusiastic speeches to whoever chose to listen to him,--nowglaring at the crowd, with clenched fists and growling voice, as he toldof how Joe and he had been tied hand and foot, and lashed to poles andburied in leaves, and threatened with a slow death by torture,--at othertimes bursting into a hilarious laugh as he held forth on thepredicament of Mahtawa when that wily chief was treed by Crusoe in theprairie.
Young Marston was there too, hanging about Dick, whom he loved as abrother and regarded as a perfect hero. Grumps, too, was there, andFan. 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, anincorrigible, utter, and perfect nuisance to everybody--not exceptinghimself, poor beast! Grumps was a dog of one idea, and that idea wasCrusoe. Out of that great idea there grew one little secondary idea,and that idea was, that the only joy on earth worth mentioning was tosit on his haunches, exactly six inches from Crusoe's nose, and gazesteadfastly into his face. Wherever Crusoe went Grumps went. If Crusoestopped Grumps was down before him in an instant. If Crusoe boundedaway, which, in the exuberance of his spirits, he often did, Grumps wasafter him like a bundle of mad hair. He was in everybody's way--inCrusoe's way, and being, so to speak, "beside himself," was also in hisown way. If people trod upon him accidentally, which they often did,Grumps uttered a solitary heart-rending yell, proportioned in intensityto the excruciating nature of the torture he endured, then instantlyresumed his position and his fascinated stare. Crusoe generally heldhis head up, and gazed over his little friend at what was going onaround him, but if for a moment he permitted his eye to rest on thecountenance of Grumps, that creature's tail became suddenly imbued withan amount of wriggling vitality that seemed to threaten its separationfrom the body.
It was really quite interesting to watch this unblushing, anddisinterested, and utterly reckless display of affection on the part ofGrumps, and the amiable way in which Crusoe put up with it--we say putup with it, advisedly, because it must have been a very greatinconvenience to him, seeing that if he attempted to move, his satellitemoved 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 onpart of him. He tumbled over everything, into everything, and againsteverything. He knocked himself, singed himself, and scalded himself,and in fact forgot himself altogether; and when, late that night, Crusoewent with Dick into his mother's cottage, and the door was shut, Grumpsstretched his ruffled, battered, ill-used, and dishevelled little bodydown on the doorstep, thrust his nose against the opening below thedoor, and lay in humble contentment all night, for he knew that Crusoewas 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 sunwent down into its bed on the western prairies, and "the nail" was soonsurrounded by bullets, tipped by Joe Blunt and Jim Scraggs, and, ofcourse, 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 darkmantle over the scene, the two best fiddlers in the settlement wereplaced on empty beer-casks, and some danced by the light of the monsterfires, while others listened to Joe Blunt as he recounted theiradventures on the prairies and among the Rocky Mountains.
There were sweethearts, and wives, and lovers at the feast, but wequestion 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 wentthere, and a little church was built, and to the blessings of a fertileland were added the far greater blessings of Christian light andknowledge. One sad blow fell on the Widow Varley's heart. Her onlybrother, Daniel Hood, was murdered by the Indians. Deeply and long shemourned, and it required all Dick's efforts and those of the pastor ofthe settlement to comfort her. But from the first the widow's heart wassustained by the loving hand that dealt the blow, and when time bluntedthe keen edge of her feelings, her face became as sweet and mild, thoughnot so lightsome, as before.
Joe Blunt and Henri became leading men in the councils of the MustangValley, but Dick Varley preferred the woods, although, as long as hismother lived, he hovered round her cottage--going off sometimes for aday, sometimes for a week, but never longer. After her head was laid inthe dust, Dick took altogether to the woods with Crusoe and Charlie thewild horse as his only companions, and his mother's Bible in the breastof his hunting shirt. And soon Dick, the bold hunter, and his dogCrusoe, became renowned in the frontier settlements from the banks ofthe Yellow Stone River to the Gulf of Mexico.
Many a grizzly bear did the famous "silver rifle" lay low, and many awild exciting chase and adventure did Dick go through, but during hisoccasional visits to the Mustang Valley, he was wont to say to Joe Bluntand Henri--with whom he always sojourned--that "nothin' he ever felt orsaw came up to his first grand dash over the Western Prairies into theheart of the Rocky Mountains." And in saying this, with enthusiasm inhis eye and voice, Dick invariably appealed to, and received a readyaffirmative glance from, his early companion, and his faithful lovingfriend--the dog Crusoe.
THE END.
The Dog Crusoe and his Master Page 27
