During all these operations Crusoe sat on his haunches beside him and looked.  And you haven’t, no, you haven’t got the most distant notion of the way in which that dog manoeuvred with his head and face.  He opened his eyes wide, and cocked his ears, and turned his head first a little to one side, then a little to the other.  After that he turned it a good deal to one side, and then a good deal more to the other.  Then he brought it straight, and raised one eyebrow a little, and then the other a little, and then both together very much.  Then, when Dick paused to rest and did nothing, Crusoe looked mild for a moment, and yawned vociferously.  Presently Dick moved—­up went the ears again, and Crusoe came, in military parlance, “to the position of attention!” At last supper was ready and they began.

Dick had purposely kept the dog’s supper back from him, in order that they might eat it in company.  And between every bite and sup that Dick took, he gave a bite—­but not a sup—­to Crusoe.  Thus lovingly they ate together; and when Dick lay that night under the willow branches, looking up through them at the stars, with his feet to the fire and Crusoe close along his side, he thought it the best and sweetest supper he ever ate, and the happiest evening he ever spent—­so wonderfully do circumstances modify our notions of felicity.

Two weeks after this “Richard was himself again.”

The muscles were springy, and the blood coursed fast and free, as was its wont.  Only a slight, and, perhaps, salutary feeling of weakness remained, to remind him that young muscles might again become more helpless than those of an aged man or a child.

Dick had left his encampment a week ago, and was now advancing by rapid stages towards the Rocky Mountains, closely following the trail of his lost comrades, which he had no difficulty in finding and keeping now that Crusoe was with him.  The skin of the buffalo that he had killed was now strapped to his shoulders, and the skin of another animal that he had shot a few days after was cut up into a long line and slung in a coil round his neck.  Crusoe was also laden.  He had a little bundle of meat slung on each side of him.

For some time past numerous herds of mustangs, or wild horses, had crossed their path, and Dick was now on the look-out for a chance to crease one of those magnificent creatures.

On one occasion a band of mustangs galloped close up to him before they were aware of his presence, and stopped short with a wild snort of surprise on beholding him; then, wheeling round, they dashed away at full gallop, their long tails and manes flying wildly in the air, and their hoofs thundering on the plain.  Dick did not attempt to crease one upon this occasion, fearing that his recent illness might have rendered his hand too unsteady for so extremely delicate an operation.