Although lying in a position that was unfavourable for eating purposes, Crusoe opened his jaws and took it.  An awful crash was 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 himself, and with a yell that one might have fancied was intended for defiance he bounded joyfully away, and was soon out of sight.

To a dog with a good appetite which had been on short allowance for several days, the mouthful given to him by the old squaw was a mere nothing.  All that day he kept bounding over the plain from bluff to bluff in search of something to eat, but found nothing until dusk, when he pounced suddenly and most unexpectedly on a prairie-hen fast asleep.  In one moment its life was gone.  In less than a minute its body was gone too—­feathers and bones and all—­down Crusoe’s ravenous throat.

On the identical spot Crusoe lay down and slept like a top for four hours.  At the end of that time he jumped up, bolted a scrap of skin that somehow had been overlooked at supper, and flew straight over the prairie to the spot where he had had the scuffle with the Indian.  He came to the edge of the river, took precisely the same leap that his master had done before him, and came out on the other side a good deal higher up than Dick had done, for the dog had no savages to dodge, and was, as we have said before, a powerful swimmer.

It cost him a good deal of running about to find the trail, and it was nearly dark before he resumed his journey; then, putting his keen nose to the ground, he ran step by step over Dick’s track, and at last found him, as we have shown, on the banks of the salt creek.

It is quite impossible to describe the intense joy which filled Dick’s heart on again beholding his favourite.  Only those who have lost and found such an one can know it.  Dick seized him round the neck and hugged him as well as he could, poor fellow! in his feeble arms; then he wept, then he laughed, and then he fainted.

This was a consummation that took Crusoe quite aback.  Never having seen his master in such a state before he seemed to think at first that he was playing some trick, for he bounded round him, and barked, and wagged his tail.  But as Dick lay quite still and motionless, he went forward with a look of alarm; snuffed him once or twice, and whined piteously; then he raised his nose in the air and uttered a long melancholy wail.

The cry seemed to revive Dick, for he moved, and with some difficulty sat up, to the dog’s evident relief.  There is no doubt whatever that Crusoe learned an erroneous lesson that day, and was firmly convinced thenceforth that the best cure for a fainting fit is a melancholy yell.  So easy is it for the wisest of dogs as well as men to fall into gross error!