In the course of a quarter of an hour there was a deep yawning hole in the sand, into which Dick peered with intense anxiety. The bottom appeared slightly damp. Hope now reanimated Dick Varley, and by various devices he succeeded in getting the dog to scrape away a sort of tunnel from the hole, into which he might roll himself and put down his lips to drink when the water should rise high enough. Impatiently and anxiously he lay watching the moisture slowly accumulate in the bottom of the hole, drop by drop, and while he gazed he fell into a troubled, restless slumber, and dreamed that Crusoe’s return was a dream, and that he was alone again perishing for want of water.
When he awakened the hole was half full of clear water, and Crusoe was lapping it greedily.
“Back, pup!” he shouted, as he crept down to the hole and put his trembling lips to the water. It was brackish, but drinkable, and as Dick drank deeply of it he esteemed it at that moment better than nectar. Here he lay for half an hour alternately drinking and gazing in surprise at his own emaciated visage as reflected in the pool.
The same afternoon Crusoe, in a private hunting excursion of his own, discovered and caught a prairie-hen, which he quietly proceeded to devour on the spot, when Dick, who saw what had occurred, whistled to him.
Obedience was engrained in every fibre of Crusoe’s mental and corporeal being. He did not merely answer at once to the call—he sprang to it, leaving the prairie-hen untasted.
“Fetch it, pup,” cried Dick eagerly as the dog came up.
In a few moments the hen was at his feet. Dick’s circumstances could not brook the delay of cookery; he gashed the bird with his knife and drank the blood, and then gave the flesh to the dog, while he crept to the pool again for another draught. Ah! think not, reader, that although we have treated this subject in a slight vein of pleasantry, because it ended well, that therefore our tale is pure fiction. Not only are Indians glad to satisfy the urgent cravings of hunger with raw flesh, but many civilised men and delicately nurtured, have done the same—ay, and doubtless, will do the same again, as long as enterprising and fearless men shall go forth to dare the dangers of flood and field in the wild places of our wonderful world!
Crusoe had finished his share of the feast before Dick returned from the pool. Then master and dog lay down together side by side and fell into a long, deep, peaceful slumber.