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.