The Dog Crusoe and his Master by Robert Michael Ballantyne (the read aloud family .txt) 📖

had more than they knew what to do with, and were therefore glad to exchange those of the most beautiful and valuable kind for a mere trifle, so that the trappers laid aside their traps for a time and devoted themselves to traffic.

Meanwhile Joe Blunt and his friends made preparations for their return journey.

"Ye see," remarked Joe to Henri and Dick, as they sat beside the fire in Pee-eye-em's lodge, and feasted on a potful of grasshopper soup, which the great chiefs squaw had just placed before them,--"ye see, my calc'lations is as follows. Wot with trappin' beavers and huntin', we three ha' made enough to sot us up, an it likes us, in the Mustang Valley--"

"Ha!" interrupted Dick, remitting for a few seconds the use of his teeth in order to exercise his tongue,--"ha! Joe, but it don't like _me_! What, give up a hunter's life and become a farmer? I should think not!"

"Bon!" ejaculated Henri, but whether the remark had reference to the grasshopper soup or the sentiment, we cannot tell.

"Well," continued Joe, commencing to devour a large buffalo steak with a hunter's appetite, "ye'll please yourselves, lads, as to that; but, as I wos sayin', we've got a powerful lot o' furs, an' a big pack o' odds and ends for the Injuns we chance to meet with by the way, an' powder and lead to last us a twelve-month, besides five good horses to carry us an' our packs over the plains; so if it's agreeable to you, I mean to make a bee-line for the Mustang Valley. We're pretty sure to meet with Blackfeet on the way, and if we do we'll try to make peace between them an' the Snakes. I 'xpect it'll be pretty well on for six weeks afore we git to home, so we'll start to-morrow."

"Dat is fat vill do ver' vell," said Henri; "vill you please donnez me one petit morsel of steak."

"I'm ready for anything, Joe," cried Dick, "you are leader. Just point the way, and I'll answer for two o' us followin' ye--eh! won't we, Crusoe?"

"We will," remarked the dog quietly.

"How comes it," inquired Dick, "that these Indians don't care for our tobacco?"

"They like their own better, I s'pose," answered Joe; "most all the western Injuns do. They make it o' the dried leaves o' the shumack and the inner bark o' the red-willow, chopped very small an' mixed together. They call this stuff _Kinnekinnik_, but they like to mix about a fourth o' our tobacco with it, so Pee-eye-em tells me, an' he's a good judge; the amount that red-skinned mortal smokes _is_ oncommon."

"What are they doin' yonder?" inquired Dick, pointing to a group of men who had been feasting for some time past in front of a tent within sight of our trio.

"Goin' to sing, I think," replied Joe.

As he spoke, six young warriors were seen to work their bodies about in a very remarkable way, and give utterance to still more remarkable sounds, which gradually increased until the singers burst out into that terrific yell, or war-whoop, for which American savages have long been famous. Its effect would save been appalling to unaccustomed ears. Then they allowed their voices to die away in soft, plaintive tones, while their action corresponded thereto. Suddenly the furious style was revived, and the men wrought themselves into a condition little short of madness, while their yells rung wildly through the camp. This was too much for ordinary canine nature to withstand, so all the dogs in the neighbourhood joined in the horrible chorus.

Crusoe had long since learned to treat the eccentricities of Indians and their curs with dignified contempt. He paid no attention to this serenade, but lay sleeping by the fire until Dick and his companions rose to take leave of their host, and return to the camp of the fur-traders. The remainder of that night was spent in making preparations for setting forth on the morrow, and when, at grey dawn, Dick and Crusoe lay down to snatch a few hours' repose, the yells and howling in the Snake camp were going on as vigorously as ever.

The sun had arisen, and his beams were just tipping the summits of the Rocky Mountains, causing the snowy peaks to glitter like flame, and the deep ravines and gorges to look sombre and mysterious by contrast, when Dick, and Joe, and Henri mounted their gallant steeds, and, with Crusoe gambolling before, and the two pack-horses trotting by their side, turned their faces eastward, and bade adieu to the Indian camp.

Crusoe was in great spirits. He was perfectly well aware that he and his companions were on their way home, and testified his satisfaction by bursts of scampering over the hills and valleys. Doubtless he thought of Dick Varley's cottage, and of Dick's mild, kind-hearted mother. Undoubtedly, too, he thought of his own mother, Fan, and felt a glow of filial affection as he did so. Of this we feel quite certain. He would have been unworthy the title of hero if he hadn't. Perchance he thought of Grumps, but of this we are not quite so sure. We rather think, upon the whole, that he did.

Dick, too, let his thoughts run away in the direction of _home_. Sweet word! Those who have never left it cannot, by any effort of imagination, realise the full import of the word "home." Dick was a bold hunter, but he was young, and this was his first long expedition. Oftentimes, when sleeping under the trees and gazing dreamily up through the branches at the stars, had he thought of home, until his longing heart began to yearn to return. He repelled such tender feelings, however, when they became too strong, deeming them unmanly, and sought to turn his mind to the excitements of the chase, but latterly his efforts were in vain. He became thoroughly home-sick, and, while admitting the fact to himself, he endeavoured to conceal it from his comrades. He thought that he was successful in this attempt. Poor Dick Varley! as yet he was sadly ignorant of human nature. Henri knew it, and Joe Blunt knew it. Even Crusoe knew that something was wrong with his master, although he could not exactly make out what it was. But Crusoe made memoranda in the note-book of his memory. He jotted down the peculiar phases of his master's new disease with the care and minute exactness of a physician; and, we doubt not, ultimately added the knowledge of the symptoms of homesickness to his already well-filled stores of erudition.

It was not till they had set out on their homeward journey that Dick Varley's spirits revived, and it was not till they reached the beautiful prairies on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and galloped over the green sward towards the Mustang Valley, that Dick ventured to tell Joe Blunt what his feelings had been.

"D'ye know, Joe," he said confidentially, reining up his gallant steed after a sharp gallop, "d'ye know I've bin feelin' awful low for some time past."

"I know it, lad," answered Joe, with a quiet smile, in which there was a dash of something that implied he knew more than he chose to express.

Dick felt surprised, but he continued, "I wonder what it could have bin. I never felt so before."

"'Twas homesickness, boy," returned Joe.

"How d'ye know that?"

"The same way as how I know most things, by experience an' obsarvation. I've bin home-sick myself once--but it was long, long agone."

Dick felt much relieved at this candid confession by such a bronzed veteran, and, the chords of sympathy having been struck, he opened up his heart at once, to the evident delight of Henri, who, among other curious partialities, was extremely fond of listening to and taking part in conversations that bordered on the metaphysical, and were hard to be understood. Most conversations that were not connected with eating and hunting were of this nature to Henri.

"Hom'-sik," he cried, "veech mean bein' sik of hom'! hah! dat is fat I am always be, ven I goes hout on de expedition. Oui, vraiment."

"I always packs up," continued Joe, paying no attention to Henri's remark,--"I always packs up an' sots off for home when I gits home-sick; it's the best cure, an' when hunters are young like you, Dick, it's the only cure. I've know'd fellers a'most die o' homesickness, an' I'm told they _do_ go under altogether sometimes."

"Go onder!" exclaimed Henri; "oui, I vas all but die myself ven I fust try to git away from hom'. If I have not git away, I not be here to-day."

Henri's idea of homesickness was so totally opposed to theirs, that his comrades only laughed, and refrained from attempting to set him right.

"The fust time I was took bad with it wos in a country somethin' like that," said Joe, pointing to the wide stretch of undulating prairie, dotted with clusters of trees and wandering streamlets, that lay before them; "I had bin out about two months, an wos makin' a good thing of it, for game wos plenty, when I began to think somehow more than usual o' home. My mother wos alive then."

Joe's voice sank to a deep, solemn tone as he said this, and for a few minutes he rode on in silence.

"Well, it grew worse and worse, I dreamed o' home all night, an' thought of it all day, till I began to shoot bad, an' my comrades wos gittin' tired o' me; so says I to them one night, says I, `I give out, lads, I'll make tracks for the settlement to-morrow.' They tried to laugh me out of it at first, but it was no go, so I packed up, bid them good-day, an' sot off alone on a trip o' five hundred miles. The very first mile o' the way back I began to mend, and before two days I wos all right again."

Joe was interrupted at this point by the sudden appearance of a solitary horseman on the brow of an eminence not half a mile distant. The three friends instantly drove their pack-horses behind a clump of trees, but not in time to escape the vigilant eye of the Red-man, who uttered a loud shout, which brought up a band of his comrades at full gallop.

"Remember, Henri," cried Joe Blunt, "our errand is one of _peace_."

The caution was needed, for in the confusion of the moment Henri was making preparation to sell his life as dearly as possible. Before another word could be uttered, they were surrounded by a troop of about twenty yelling Blackfeet Indians. They were, fortunately, not a war-party, and, still more fortunately, they were peaceably disposed, and listened to the preliminary address of Joe Blunt with exemplary patience; after which the two parties encamped on the spot, the council-fire was lighted, and every preparation made for a long palaver.

We will not trouble the reader with the details of what was said on this occasion. The party of Indians was a small one, and no chief of any importance was attached to it. Suffice it to say that the pacific overtures made by Joe were well received, the trifling gifts made thereafter were still better received, and they separated with mutual expressions of good will.

Several other bands which