The Dog Crusoe and his Master | Page 3

sward in front
of the tent, and above it stood a tripod, from which depended a large tin
camp-kettle. Over this hung an ill-favoured Indian woman, or squaw,
who, besides attending to the contents of the pot, bestowed sundry
cuffs and kicks upon her little child, which sat near to her playing with
several Indian curs that gambolled round the fire. The master of the
family and his two sons reclined on buffalo robes, smoking their stone
pipes or calumets in silence. There was nothing peculiar in their
appearance. Their faces were neither dignified nor coarse in expression,
but wore an aspect of stupid apathy, which formed a striking contrast to
the countenance of the young hunter, who seemed an amused spectator

of their proceedings.
The youth referred to was very unlike, in many respects, to what we are
accustomed to suppose a backwoods hunter should be. He did not
possess that quiet gravity and staid demeanour which often characterise
these men. True, he was tall and strongly made, but no one would have
called him stalwart, and his frame indicated grace and agility rather
than strength. But the point about him which rendered him different
from his companions was his bounding, irrepressible flow of spirits,
strangely coupled with an intense love of solitary wandering in the
woods. None seemed so well fitted for social enjoyment as he; none
laughed so heartily, or expressed such glee in his mischief-loving eye;
yet for days together he went off alone into the forest, and wandered
where his fancy led him, as grave and silent as an Indian warrior.
After all, there was nothing mysterious in this. The boy followed
implicitly the dictates of nature within him. He was amiable,
straightforward, sanguine, and intensely earnest. When he laughed he
let it out, as sailors have it, "with a will." When there was good cause to
be grave, no power on earth could make him smile. We have called him
boy, but in truth he was about that uncertain period of life when a youth
is said to be neither a man nor a boy. His face was good-looking (every
earnest, candid face is) and masculine; his hair was reddish-brown, and
his eye bright blue. He was costumed in the deerskin cap, leggings,
moccasins, and leathern shirt common to the western hunter.
"You seem tickled wi' the Injuns, Dick Varley," said a man who at that
moment issued from the block-house.
"That's just what I am, Joe Blunt," replied the youth, turning with a
broad grin to his companion.
"Have a care, lad; do not laugh at 'em too much. They soon take
offence; an' them Red-skins never forgive."
"But I'm only laughing at the baby," returned the youth, pointing to the
child, which, with a mixture of boldness and timidity, was playing with
a pup, wrinkling up its fat visage into a smile when its playmate rushed

away in sport, and opening wide its jet-black eyes in grave anxiety as
the pup returned at full gallop.
"It 'ud make an owl laugh," continued young Varley, "to see such a
queer pictur' o' itself."
He paused suddenly, and a dark frown covered his face as he saw the
Indian woman stoop quickly down, catch the pup by its hind-leg with
one hand, seize a heavy piece of wood with the other, and strike it
several violent blows on the throat. Without taking the trouble to kill
the poor animal outright, the savage then held its still writhing body
over the fire in order to singe off the hair before putting it into the pot
to be cooked.
The cruel act drew young Varley's attention more closely to the pup,
and it flashed across his mind that this could be no other than young
Crusoe, which neither he nor his companion had before seen, although
they had often heard others speak of and describe it.
Had the little creature been one of the unfortunate Indian curs, the two
hunters would probably have turned from the sickening sight with
disgust, feeling that, however much they might dislike such cruelty, it
would be of no use attempting to interfere with Indian usages. But the
instant the idea that it was Crusoe occurred to Varley he uttered a yell
of anger, and sprang towards the woman with a bound that caused the
three Indians to leap to their feet and grasp their tomahawks.
Blunt did not move from the gate, but threw forward his rifle with a
careless motion, but an expressive glance, that caused the Indians to
resume their seats and pipes with an emphatic "Wah!" of disgust at
having been startled out of their propriety by a trifle, while Dick Varley
snatched poor Crusoe from his dangerous and painful position, scowled
angrily in the woman's face, and, turning