the Rocky Mountains, and consists in killing a dog and cutting out its liver, which is afterwards sliced into shreds or strings and hung on a pole, about the height of a man’s head. A band of warriors then come and dance wildly round this pole, and each one in succession goes up to the raw liver and bites a piece off it, without, however, putting his hands near it. Such is the dog-dance, and to such was poor Crusoe destined by his fierce captors, especially by the one whose throat still bore marks of his teeth.
But Crusoe was much too clever a dog to be disposed of in so disgusting a manner. He had privately resolved in his own mind that he would escape; but the hopelessness of his ever carrying that resolution into effect would have been apparent to any one who could have seen the way in which his muzzle was secured, and his four paws were tied, as he hung across the saddle of one of the savages.
This particular party of Indians who had followed Dick Varley determined not to wait for the return of their comrades who were in pursuit of the other two hunters, but to go straight home; so for several days they galloped away over the prairie. At nights, when they encamped, Crusoe was thrown on the ground like a piece of old lumber, and left to lie there with a mere scrap of food till morning, when he was again thrown across the horse of his captor and carried on. When the village was reached he was thrown again on the ground, and would certainly have been torn to pieces in five minutes by the Indian curs which came howling round him, had not an old woman come to the rescue and driven them away. With the help of her grandson—a little naked creature, just able to walk, or rather to stagger—she dragged him to her tent, and, undoing the line that fastened his mouth, offered him a bone.
Although lying in a position that was unfavourable for eating purposes, Crusoe opened his jaws and took it. An awful crash followed by two crunches—and it was gone; and Crusoe looked up in the old squaw’s face with a look that said plainly, “Another of the same, please, and as quick as possible.” The old woman gave him another, and then a lump of meat, which latter went down with a gulp; but he coughed after it, and it was well he didn’t choke. After this the squaw left him, and Crusoe spent the remainder of that night gnawing the cords that bound him. So diligent was he that he was free before morning, and walked deliberately out of the tent. Then he shook
