CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

REJOICINGS--THE FEAST AT THE BLOCK-HOUSE--GRUMPS AND CRUSOE COME OUT STRONG--THE CLOSING SCENE.

The day of d.i.c.k's arrival with his companions was a great day in the annals of the Mustang Valley, and Major Hope resolved to celebrate it by an impromptu festival at the old block-house; for many hearts in the valley had been made glad that day, and he knew full well that, under such circ.u.mstances, some safety-valve must be devised for the escape of overflowing excitement.

A messenger was sent round to invite the population to a.s.semble without delay in front of the block-house. With backwoods-like celerity the summons was obeyed; men, women, and children hurried towards the central point wondering, yet more than half suspecting, what was the major's object in calling them together.

They were not long in doubt. The first sight that presented itself as they came trooping up the slope in front of the log hut, was an ox roasting whole before a gigantic bonfire. Tables were being extemporised on the broad level plot in front of the gate. Other fires there were, of smaller dimensions, on which sundry steaming pots were placed, and various joints of wild horse, bear, and venison roasted, and sent forth a savoury odour as well as a pleasant hissing noise. The inhabitants of the block-house were self-taught brewers, and the result of their recent labours now stood displayed in a row of goodly casks of beer--the only beverage with which the dwellers in these far-off regions were wont to regale themselves.

The whole scene--as the cooks moved actively about upon the lawn, and children romped round the fires, and settlers came flocking through the forests--might have recalled the revelry of merry England in the olden time, though the costumes of the far west were, perhaps, somewhat different from those of old England.

No one of all the band a.s.sembled there on that day of rejoicing required to ask what it was all about. Had any one been in doubt for a moment, a glance at the centre of the crowd a.s.sembled round the gate of the western fortress would have quickly enlightened him; for there stood d.i.c.k Varley, and his mild-looking mother, and his loving dog, Crusoe.

There, too, stood Joe Blunt, like a bronzed warrior returned from the fight, turning from one to another as question poured in upon question almost too rapidly to permit of a reply. There, too, stood Henri, making enthusiastic speeches to whoever chose to listen to him,--now glaring at the crowd, with clenched fists and growling voice, as he told of how Joe and he had been tied hand and foot, and lashed to poles and buried in leaves, and threatened with a slow death by torture,--at other times bursting into a hilarious laugh as he held forth on the predicament of Mahtawa when that wily chief was treed by Crusoe in the prairie.

Young Marston was there too, hanging about d.i.c.k, whom he loved as a brother and regarded as a perfect hero. Grumps, too, was there, and Fan. 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, an incorrigible, utter, and perfect nuisance to everybody--not excepting himself, poor beast! Grumps was a dog of one idea, and that idea was Crusoe. Out of that great idea there grew one little secondary idea, and that idea was, that the only joy on earth worth mentioning was to sit on his haunches, exactly six inches from Crusoe's nose, and gaze steadfastly into his face. Wherever Crusoe went Grumps went. If Crusoe stopped Grumps was down before him in an instant. If Crusoe bounded away, which, in the exuberance of his spirits, he often did, Grumps was after him like a bundle of mad hair. He was in everybody's way--in Crusoe's way, and being, so to speak, "beside himself," was also in his own way. If people trod upon him accidentally, which they often did, Grumps uttered a solitary heart-rending yell, proportioned in intensity to the excruciating nature of the torture he endured, then instantly resumed his position and his fascinated stare. Crusoe generally held his head up, and gazed over his little friend at what was going on around him, but if for a moment he permitted his eye to rest on the countenance of Grumps, that creature's tail became suddenly imbued with an amount of wriggling vitality that seemed to threaten its separation from the body.

It was really quite interesting to watch this unblushing, and disinterested, and utterly reckless display of affection on the part of Grumps, and the amiable way in which Crusoe put up with it--we say put up with it, advisedly, because it must have been a very great inconvenience to him, seeing that if he attempted to move, his satellite moved in front of him, so that his only way of escaping, temporarily, was by jumping over Grumps's head.

Grumps was everywhere all day. n.o.body, almost, escaped trampling on part of him. He tumbled over everything, into everything, and against everything. He knocked himself, singed himself, and scalded himself, and in fact forgot himself altogether; and when, late that night, Crusoe went with d.i.c.k into his mother's cottage, and the door was shut, Grumps stretched his ruffled, battered, ill-used, and dishevelled little body down on the doorstep, thrust his nose against the opening below the door, and lay in humble contentment all night, for he knew that Crusoe was there.

Of course such an occasion could not pa.s.s without a shooting match.

Rifles were brought out after the feast was over, just before the sun went down into its bed on the western prairies, and "the nail" was soon surrounded by bullets, tipped by Joe Blunt and Jim Scraggs, and, of course, driven home by d.i.c.k Varley, whose silver rifle had now become, in its owner's hand, a never-failing weapon. Races, too, were started, and here again d.i.c.k stood pre-eminent, and when night spread her dark mantle over the scene, the two best fiddlers in the settlement were placed on empty beer-casks, and some danced by the light of the monster fires, while others listened to Joe Blunt as he recounted their adventures on the prairies and among the Rocky Mountains.

There were sweethearts, and wives, and lovers at the feast, but we question whether any heart there was so full of love, and admiration, and grat.i.tude as that of the Widow Varley as she watched her son d.i.c.k, throughout that merry evening.

Years rolled by, and the Mustang Valley prospered. Missionaries went there, and a little church was built, and to the blessings of a fertile land were added the far greater blessings of Christian light and knowledge. One sad blow fell on the Widow Varley's heart. Her only brother, Daniel Hood, was murdered by the Indians. Deeply and long she mourned, and it required all d.i.c.k's efforts and those of the pastor of the settlement to comfort her. But from the first the widow's heart was sustained by the loving hand that dealt the blow, and when time blunted the keen edge of her feelings, her face became as sweet and mild, though not so lightsome, as before.

Joe Blunt and Henri became leading men in the councils of the Mustang Valley, but d.i.c.k Varley preferred the woods, although, as long as his mother lived, he hovered round her cottage--going off sometimes for a day, sometimes for a week, but never longer. After her head was laid in the dust, d.i.c.k took altogether to the woods with Crusoe and Charlie the wild horse as his only companions, and his mother's Bible in the breast of his hunting shirt. And soon d.i.c.k, the bold hunter, and his dog Crusoe, became renowned in the frontier settlements from the banks of the Yellow Stone River to the Gulf of Mexico.

Many a grizzly bear did the famous "silver rifle" lay low, and many a wild exciting chase and adventure did d.i.c.k go through, but during his occasional visits to the Mustang Valley, he was wont to say to Joe Blunt and Henri--with whom he always sojourned--that "nothin' he ever felt or saw came up to his first grand dash over the Western Prairies into the heart of the Rocky Mountains." And in saying this, with enthusiasm in his eye and voice, d.i.c.k invariably appealed to, and received a ready affirmative glance from, his early companion, and his faithful loving friend--the dog Crusoe.

THE END.