The Dog Crusoe and his Master | Page 4

looked at the ground and shook his head.
Joe was one of the regular out-and-out backwoods hunters, both in appearance and in fact--broad, tall, massive, lion-like,--gifted with the hunting, stalking, running, and trail--following powers of the savage, and with a superabundance of the shooting and fighting powers, the daring and dash of the Anglo-Saxon. He was grave, too seldom smiled, and rarely laughed. His expression almost at all times was a compound of seriousness and good-humour. With the rifle he was a good, steady shot; but by no means a "crack" one. His ball never failed to hit, but it often failed to kill.
After meditating a few seconds, Joe Blunt again shook his head, and muttered to himself; "The boy's bold enough, but he's too reckless for a hunter. There was no need for that yell, now--none at all."
Having uttered this sagacious remark, he threw his rifle into the hollow of his left arm, turned round, and strode off with a long, slow step towards his own cottage.
Blunt was an American by birth, but of Irish extraction, and to an attentive ear there was a faint echo of the brogue in his tone, which seemed to have been handed down to him as a threadbare and almost worn-out heirloom.
Poor Crusoe was singed almost naked. His wretched tail seemed little better than a piece of wire filed off to a point, and he vented his misery in piteous squeaks as the sympathetic Varley confided him tenderly to the care of his mother. How Fan managed to cure him no one can tell, but cure him she did, for, in the course of a few weeks, Crusoe was as well, and sleek, and fat as ever.
CHAPTER TWO.
A SHOOTING MATCH AND ITS CONSEQUENCES--NEW FRIENDS INTRODUCED TO THE READER--CRUSOE AND HIS MOTHER CHANGE MASTERS.
Shortly after the incident narrated in the last chapter, the squatters of the Mustang Valley lost their leader. Major Hope suddenly announced his intention of quitting the settlement, and returning to the civilised world. Private matters, he said, required his presence there--matters which he did not choose to speak of but which would prevent his returning again to reside among them. Go he must, and, being a man of determination, go he did; but before going he distributed all his goods and chattels among the settlers. He even gave away his rifle, and Fan, and Crusoe. These last, however, he resolved should go together; and as they were well worth having, he announced that he would give them to the best shot in the valley. He stipulated that the winner should escort him to the nearest settlement eastward, after which he might return with the rifle on his shoulder.
Accordingly, a long level piece of ground on the river's bank, with a perpendicular cliff at the end of it, was selected as the shooting ground, and, on the appointed day, at the appointed hour, the competitors began to assemble.
"Well, lad, first as usual," exclaimed Joe Blunt, as he reached the ground and found Dick Varley there before him.
"I've bin here more than an hour lookin' for a new kind o' flower that Jack Morgan told me he'd seen. And I've found it too. Look here; did you ever see one like it before?"
Blunt leaned his rifle against a tree, and carefully examined the flower.
"Why, yes, I've seed a-many o' them up about the Rocky Mountains, but never one here-away. It seems to have gone lost itself. The last I seed, if I remimber rightly, wos near the head-waters o' the Yellowstone River, it wos--jest where I shot a grizzly bar."
"Was that the bar that gave you the wipe on the cheek?" asked Varley, forgetting the flower in his interest about the bear.
"It was. I put six balls in that bar's carcase, and stuck my knife into its heart ten times afore it gave out; an' it nearly ripped the shirt off my back afore I was done with it."
"I would give my rifle to get a chance at a grizzly!" exclaimed Varley, with a sudden burst of enthusiasm.
"Whoever got it wouldn't have much to brag of," remarked a burly young backwoodsman, as he joined them.
His remark was true, for poor Dick's weapon was but a sorry affair. It missed fire, and it hung fire, and even when it did fire it remained a matter of doubt in its owner's mind whether the slight deviations from the direct line made by his bullets were the result of his or its bad shooting.
Further comment upon it was checked by the arrival of a dozen or more hunters on the scene of action. They were a sturdy set of bronzed, bold, fearless men, and one felt, on looking at them, that they would prove more than a match for several hundreds of Indians in open fight.