The Dog Crusoe and His Master: A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies

by R. M. Ballantyne

  CHAPTER XIV.

  _Crusoe's return, and his private adventures among the Indians--Dickat a very low ebb--Crusoe saves him_.

  The means by which Crusoe managed to escape from his two-leggedcaptors, and rejoin his master, require separate and special notice.

  In the struggle with the fallen horse and Indian, which Dick had seenbegun but not concluded, he was almost crushed to death; and theinstant the Indian gained his feet, he sent an arrow at his head withsavage violence. Crusoe, however, had been so well used to dodging theblunt-headed arrows that were wont to be shot at him by the boys ofthe Mustang Valley, that he was quite prepared, and eluded the shaftby an active bound. Moreover, he uttered one of his own peculiarroars, flew at the Indian's throat, and dragged him down. At the samemoment the other Indians came up, and one of them turned aside to therescue. This man happened to have an old gun, of the cheap sort atthat time exchanged for peltries by the fur-traders. With the butt ofthis he struck Crusoe a blow on the head that sent him sprawling onthe grass.

  The rest of the savages, as we have seen, continued in pursuit of Dickuntil he leaped into the river; then they returned, took the saddleand bridle off his dead horse, and rejoined their comrades. Here theyheld a court-martial on Crusoe, who was now bound foot and muzzlewith cords. Some were for killing him; others, who admired his nobleappearance, immense size, and courage, thought it would be well tocarry him to their village and keep him. There was a pretty violentdispute on the subject, but at length it was agreed that they shouldspare his life in the meantime, and perhaps have a dog-dance round himwhen they got to their wigwams.

  This dance, of which Crusoe was to be the chief though passiveperformer, is peculiar to some of the tribes east of the RockyMountains, and consists in killing a dog and cutting out its liver,which is afterwards sliced into shreds or strings and hung on a poleabout the height of a man's head. A band of warriors then come anddance wildly round this pole, and each one in succession goes up tothe raw liver and bites a piece off it, without, however, putting hishands near it. Such is the dog-dance, and to such was poor Crusoedestined by his fierce captors, especially by the one whose throatstill bore very evident marks of his teeth.

  But Crusoe was much too clever a dog to be disposed of in sodisgusting a manner. He had privately resolved in his own mind thathe would escape; but the hopelessness of his ever carrying thatresolution into effect would have been apparent to any one who couldhave seen the way in which his muzzle was secured, and his four pawswere tied together in a bunch, as he hung suspended across the saddleof one of the savages!

  This particular party of Indians who had followed Dick Varleydetermined not to wait for the return of their comrades who were inpursuit of the other two hunters, but to go straight home, so forseveral days they galloped away over the prairie. At nights, when theyencamped, 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 hewas again thrown across the horse of his captor and carried on. Whenthe village was reached, he was thrown again on the ground, and wouldcertainly have been torn to pieces in five minutes by the Indian curswhich came howling round him, had not an old woman come to the rescueand driven them away. With the help of her grand-son--a little nakedcreature, just able to walk, or rather to stagger--she dragged him toher tent, and, undoing the line that fastened his mouth, offered him abone.

  Although lying in a position that was unfavourable for eatingpurposes, Crusoe opened his jaws and took it. An awful crash wasfollowed by two crunches--and it was gone! and Crusoe looked up in theold 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 hecoughed after it! and it was well he didn't choke. After this thesquaw left him, and Crusoe spent the remainder of that night gnawingthe cords that bound him. So diligent was he that he was free beforemorning and walked deliberately out of the tent. Then he shookhimself, and with a yell that one might have fancied was intended fordefiance he bounded joyfully away, and was soon out of sight.

  To a dog with a good appetite which had been on short allowance forseveral days, the mouthful given to him by the old squaw was a merenothing. All that day he kept bounding over the plain from bluff tobluff in search of something to eat, but found nothing until dusk,when he pounced suddenly and most unexpectedly on a prairie-hen fastasleep. In one moment its life was gone. In less than a minute itsbody was gone too--feathers and bones and all--down Crusoe's ravenousthroat.

  On the identical spot Crusoe lay down and slept like a top for fourhours. At the end of that time he jumped up, bolted a scrap of skinthat somehow had been overlooked at supper, and flew straight over theprairie to the spot where he had had the scuffle with the Indian. Hecame to the edge of the river, took precisely the same leap that hismaster had done before him, and came out on the other side a good dealhigher up than Dick had done, for the dog had no savages to dodge, andwas, as we have said before, a powerful swimmer.

  It cost him a good deal of running about to find the trail, and it wasnearly dark before he resumed his journey; then, putting his keen noseto the ground, he ran step by step over Dick's track, and at lastfound him, as we have shown, on the banks of the salt creek.

  It is quite impossible to describe the intense joy which filled Dick'sheart on again beholding his favourite. Only those who have lost andfound such an one can know it. Dick seized him round the neck andhugged him as well as he could, poor fellow! in his feeble arms; thenhe wept, then he laughed, and then he fainted.

  This was a consummation that took Crusoe quite aback. Never havingseen his master in such a state before he seemed to think at firstthat he was playing some trick, for he bounded round him, and barked,and wagged his tail. But as Dick lay quite still and motionless, hewent forward with a look of alarm; snuffed him once or twice, andwhined piteously; then he raised his nose in the air and uttered along melancholy wail.

  The cry seemed to revive Dick, for he moved, and with some difficultysat up, to the dog's evident relief. There is no doubt whatever thatCrusoe learned an erroneous lesson that day, and was firmly convincedthenceforth that the best cure for a fainting fit is a melancholyyell. So easy is it for the wisest of dogs as well as men to fall intogross 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 alevel patch of dry sand.

  "Dig," said Dick, pointing to the sand.

  Crusoe looked at him in surprise, as well he might, for he had neverheard 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 tothe hole, cried, "_Seek him out, pup_!"

  Ha! Crusoe understood _that_. Many and many a time had he unhousedrabbits, 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, andsnuffing interrogatively, as if he fully expected to find a buffalo atthe bottom of it. Then he would resume again, one paw after anotherso fast that you could scarce see them going--"hand over hand," assailors would have called it--while the sand flew out between his hindlegs in a continuous shower. When the sand accumulated so much behindhim as to impede his motions he scraped it out of his way, and set towork again with tenfold earnestness. After a good while he paused andlooked 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, toothand nail, harder than ever.

  In the course of a quarter of an hour there was a deep yawning holein the sand, into which Dick peered with intense anxiety. The bottomappeared slightly _damp_. Hope now reanimated Dick Varley, and byvarious devices he succeeded in getting the dog to scrape away a sortof tunnel
from the hole, into which he might roll himself and put downhis lips to drink when the water should rise high enough. Impatientlyand anxiously he lay watching the moisture slowly accumulate in thebottom of the hole, drop by drop, and while he gazed he fell into atroubled, restless slumber, and dreamed that Crusoe's return was adream, and that he was alone again, perishing for want of water.

  When he awakened the hole was half full of clear water, and Crusoe waslapping it greedily.

  "Back, pup!" he shouted, as he crept down to the hole and put histrembling lips to the water. It was brackish, but drinkable, and asDick drank deeply of it he esteemed it at that moment better thannectar. Here he lay for half-an-hour, alternately drinking and gazingin 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 todevour on the spot, when Dick, who saw what had occurred, whistled tohim.

  Obedience was engrained in every fibre of Crusoe's mental andcorporeal 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 couldnot brook the delay of cookery; he gashed the bird with his knife anddrank the blood, and then gave the flesh to the dog, while he creptto the pool again for another draught. Ah! think not, reader, thatalthough we have treated this subject in a slight vein of pleasantry,because it ended well, that therefore our tale is pure fiction. Notonly are Indians glad to satisfy the urgent cravings of hunger withraw flesh, but many civilized men and delicately nurtured have donethe same--ay, and doubtless will do the same again, as long asenterprising and fearless men shall go forth to dare the dangers offlood and field in the wild places of our wonderful world!

  Crusoe had finished his share of the feast before Dick returned fromthe pool. Then master and dog lay down together side by side and fellinto a long, deep, peaceful slumber.