CHAPTER XIII.
Escape from Indians--A discovery--Alone in the desert
.
Dick Varley had spent so much of his boyhood
in sporting about among the waters of the rivers
and lakes near which he had been reared, and especially
during the last two years had spent so much of his
leisure time in rolling and diving with his dog Crusoe
in the lake of the Mustang Valley, that he had become
almost as expert in the water as a South Sea islander;
so that when he found himself whirling down the rapid
river, as already described, he was more impressed with
a feeling of gratitude to God for his escape from the
Indians than anxiety about getting ashore.
He was not altogether blind or indifferent to the
danger into which he might be hurled if the channel of
the river should be found lower down to be broken with
rocks, or should a waterfall unexpectedly appear. After
floating down a sufficient distance to render pursuit
out of the question, he struck into the bank opposite to
that from which he had plunged, and clambering up
to the greensward above, stripped off the greater part
of his clothing and hung it on the branches of a bush to
dry. Then he sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree
to consider what course he had best pursue in his present
circumstances.
These circumstances were by no means calculated to
inspire him with hope or comfort. He was in the
midst of an unknown wilderness, hundreds of miles
from any white man's settlement; surrounded by
savages; without food or blanket; his companions
gone, he knew not whither--perhaps taken and killed
by the Indians; his horse dead; and his dog, the most
trusty and loving of all his friends, lost to him, probably,
for ever! A more veteran heart might have
quailed in the midst of such accumulated evils; but
Dick Varley possessed a strong, young, and buoyant
constitution, which, united with a hopefulness of disposition
that almost nothing could overcome, enabled him
very quickly to cast aside the gloomy view of his case
and turn to its brighter aspects.
He still grasped his good rifle, that was some comfort;
and as his eye fell upon it, he turned with anxiety to
examine into the condition of his powder-horn and the
few things that he had been fortunate enough to carry
away with him about his person.
The horn in which western hunters carry their powder
is usually that of an ox. It is closed up at the large
end with a piece of hard wood fitted tightly into it, and
the small end is closed with a wooden peg or stopper.
It is therefore completely water-tight, and may be for
hours immersed without the powder getting wet, unless
the stopper should chance to be knocked out. Dick
found, to his great satisfaction, that the stopper was
fast and the powder perfectly dry. Moreover, he had by good fortune
filled
it full two days before from the
package that contained the general stock of ammunition,
so that there were only two or three charges out of it.
His percussion caps, however, were completely destroyed;
and even though they had not been, it would have mattered
little, for he did not possess more than half-a-dozen.
But this was not so great a misfortune as at first it
might seem, for he had the spare flint locks and the little
screw-driver necessary for fixing and unfixing them
stowed away in his shot pouch.
To examine his supply of bullets was his next care,
and slowly he counted them out, one by one, to the
number of thirty. This was a pretty fair supply, and
with careful economy would last him many days. Having
relieved his mind on these all-important points,
he carefully examined every pouch and corner of his
dress to ascertain the exact amount and value of his
wealth.
Besides the leather leggings, moccasins, deerskin hunting-shirt,
cap, and belt which composed his costume, he
had a short heavy hunting-knife, a piece of tinder, a
little tin pannikin, which he had been in the habit of
carrying at his belt, and a large cake of maple sugar.
This last is a species of sugar which is procured by the
Indians from the maple-tree. Several cakes of it had
been carried off from the Pawnee village, and Dick
usually carried one in the breast of his coat. Besides
these things, he found that the little Bible, for which
his mother had made a small inside breast-pocket, was
safe. Dick's heart smote him when he took it out and
undid the clasp, for he had not looked at it until that
day. It was firmly bound with a brass clasp, so that,
although the binding and the edges of the leaves were
soaked, the inside was quite dry. On opening the book
to see if it had been damaged, a small paper fell out.
Picking it up quickly, he unfolded it, and read, in his
mother's handwriting: "
Call upon me in the time of
trouble; and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify
me. My son, give me thine heart
."
Dick's eyes filled with tears while the sound, as it
were, of his mother's voice thus reached him unexpectedly
in that lonely wilderness. Like too many whose
hearts are young and gay, Dick had regarded religion, if
not as a gloomy, at least as not a cheerful thing. But
he felt the comfort of these words at that moment, and
he resolved seriously to peruse his mother's parting gift
in time to come.
The sun was hot, and a warm breeze gently shook
the leaves, so that Dick's garments were soon dry. A
few minutes served to change the locks of his rifle, draw
the wet charges, dry out the barrels, and re-load. Then
throwing it across his shoulder, he entered the wood and
walked lightly away. And well he might, poor fellow,
for at that moment he felt light enough in person if not
in heart. His worldly goods were not such as to oppress
him; but the little note had turned his thoughts towards
home, and he felt comforted.
Traversing the belt of woodland that marked the
course of the river, Dick soon emerged on the wide
prairie beyond, and here he paused in some uncertainty
as to how he should proceed.
He was too good a backwoodsman, albeit so young, to
feel perplexed as to the points of the compass. He
knew pretty well what hour it was, so that the sun
showed him the general bearings of the country, and he
knew that when night came he could correct his course
by the pole star. Dick's knowledge of astronomy was
limited; he knew only one star by name, but that one
was an inestimable treasure of knowledge. His perplexity
was owing to his uncertainty as to the direction
in which his companions and their pursuers had gone;
for he had made up his mind to follow their trail if
possible, and render all the succour his single arm
might afford. To desert them, and make for the settlement,
he held, would be a faithless and cowardly
act.
While they were together Joe Blunt had often talked
to him about the route he meant to pursue to the Rocky
Mountains, so that, if they had escaped the Indians, he
thought there might be some chance of finding them at
last. But, to set against this, there was the probability
that they had been taken and carried away in a totally
different direction; or they might have taken to the
river, as he had done, and gone farther down without
his observing them. Then, again, if they had escaped,
they would be sure to return and search the country
round for him, so that if he left the spot he might miss
them.
"Oh for my dear pup Crusoe!" he exclaimed aloud
in this dilemma; but the faithful ear was shut now,
and the deep silence that followed his cry was so oppressive
that the young hunter sprang forward at a run
over the plain, as if to fly from solitude. He soon became
so absorbed, however, in his efforts to find the
trail of his companions, that he forgot all other considerations,
and ran straight forward for hours together
with his eyes eagerly fixed on the ground. At last he
felt so hungry, having tasted no food since supper-time
the previous evening, that he halted for the purpose of
eating a morsel of maple sugar. A line of bushes in
the distance indicated water, so he sped on again, and
was soon seated beneath a willow, drinking water from
the cool stream. No game was to be found here, but
there were several kinds of berries, among which wild
grapes and plums grew in abundance. With these and
some sugar he made a meal, though not a good one, for
the berries were quite green and intensely sour.
All that day Dick Varley followed up the trail of his
companions, which he discovered at a ford in the river.
They had crossed, therefore, in safety, though still pursued;
so he ran on at a regular trot, and with a little
more hope than he had felt during the day. Towards
night, however, Dick's heart sank again, for he came
upon innumerable buffalo tracks, among which those of
the horses soon became mingled up, so that he lost them
altogether. Hoping to find them again more easily by
broad daylight, he went to the nearest clump of willows
he could find, and encamped for the night.
Remembering the use formerly made of the tall willows,
he set to work to construct a covering to protect
him from the dew. As he had no blanket or buffalo
skin, he used leaves and grass instead, and found it a
better shelter than he had expected, especially when the
fire was lighted, and a pannikin of hot sugar and water
smoked at his feet; but as no game was to be found, he
was again compelled to sup off unripe berries. Before
lying down to rest he remembered his resolution, and
pulling out the little Bible, read a portion of it by the
fitful blaze of the fire, and felt great comfort in its blessed
words. It seemed to him like a friend with whom he
could converse in the midst of his loneliness.
The plunge into the river having broken Dick's pipe
and destroyed his tobacco, he now felt the want of that
luxury very severely, and, never having wanted it before,
he was greatly surprised to find how much he had
become enslaved to the habit. It cost him more than
an hour's rest that night, the craving for his wonted
pipe.
The sagacious reader will doubtless not fail here to
ask himself the question, whether it is wise in man to
create in himself an unnatural and totally unnecessary
appetite, which may, and often does, entail hours--ay,
sometimes months--of exceeding discomfort; but we
would not for a moment presume to suggest such a
question to him. We have a distinct objection to the
ordinary method of what is called "drawing a moral."
It is much better to leave wise men to do this for
themselves.
Next morning Dick rose with the sun, and started
without breakfast, preferring to take his chance of finding
a bird or animal of some kind before long, to feeding
again on sour berries. He was disappointed, however,
in finding the tracks of his companions. The ground
here was hard and sandy, so that little or no impression
of a distinct kind was made on it; and as buffaloes
had traversed it in all directions, he was soon utterly
bewildered. He thought it possible that, by running
out for several miles in a straight line, and then taking
a wide circuit round, he might find the tracks emerging
from the confusion made by the buffaloes. But he was
again disappointed, for the buffalo tracks still continued,
and the ground became less capable of showing a footprint.
Soon Dick began to feel so ill and weak from eating
such poor fare, that he gave up all hope of discovering
the tracks, and was compelled to push forward at his
utmost speed in order to reach a less barren district,
where he might procure fresh meat; but the farther he
advanced the worse and more sandy did the district
become. For several days he pushed on over this arid
waste without seeing bird or beast, and, to add to his
misery, he failed at last to find water. For a day and
a night he wandered about in a burning fever, and his
throat so parched that he was almost suffocated. Towards
the close of the second day he saw a slight line
of bushes away down in a hollow on his right. With
eager steps he staggered towards them, and, on drawing
near, beheld--blessed sight!--a stream of water glancing
in the beams of the setting sun.
Dick tried to shout for joy, but his parched throat
refused to give utterance to the voice. It mattered
not. Exerting all his remaining strength he rushed
down the bank, dropped his rifle, and plunged headforemost
into the stream.
The first mouthful sent a thrill of horror to his heart;
it was salt as brine!
The poor youth's cup of bitterness was now full to
overflowing. Crawling out of the stream, he sank down
on the bank in a species of lethargic torpor, from which,
he awakened next morning in a raging fever. Delirium
soon rendered him insensible to his sufferings. The
sun rose like a ball of fire, and shone down with scorching
power on the arid plain. What mattered it to
Dick? He was far away in the shady groves of the
Mustang Valley, chasing the deer at times, but more
frequently cooling his limbs and sporting with Crusoe
in the bright blue lake. Now he was in his mother's
cottage, telling her how he had thought of her when
far away on the prairie, and what a bright, sweet word
it was she had whispered in his ear--so unexpectedly,
too. Anon he was scouring over the plains on horseback,
with the savages at his heels; and at such times
Dick would spring with almost supernatural strength
from the ground, and run madly over the burning plain;
but, as if by a species of fascination, he always returned
to the salt river, and sank exhausted by its side, or
plunged helplessly into its waters.
These sudden immersions usually restored him for a
short time to reason, and he would crawl up the bank
and gnaw a morsel of the maple sugar; but he could not
eat much, for it was in a tough, compact cake, which
his jaws had not power to break. All that day and
the next night he lay on the banks of the salt stream,
or rushed wildly over the plain. It was about noon of
the second day after his attack that he crept slowly
out of the water, into which he had plunged a few
seconds before. His mind was restored, but he felt an
indescribable sensation of weakness, that seemed to him
to be the approach of death. Creeping towards the
place where his rifle lay, he fell exhausted beside it,
and laid his cheek on the Bible, which had fallen out
of his pocket there.
While his eyes were closed in a dreamy sort of half-waking
slumber, he felt the rough, hairy coat of an animal
brush against his forehead. The idea of being torn
to pieces by wolves flashed instantly across his mind,
and with a shriek of terror he sprang up--to be almost
overwhelmed by the caresses of his faithful dog.
Yes, there he was, bounding round his master, barking
and whining, and giving vent to every possible
expression of canine joy!