CHAPTER XVI.

Dick becomes a horse tamer—­Resumes his journey—­Charlie’s doings—­Misfortunes which lead to, but do not terminate in, the Rocky Mountains—­A grizzly bear.

There is a proverb—­or a saying—­or at least somebody or book has told us, that some Irishman once said, “Be aisy; or, if ye can’t be aisy, be as aisy as ye can.”

Now, we count that good advice, and strongly recommend it to all and sundry.  Had we been at the side of Dick Varley on the night after his taming of the wild horse, we would have strongly urged that advice upon him.  Whether he would have listened to it or not is quite another question; we rather think not.  Reader, if you wish to know why, go and do what he did, and if you feel no curious sensations about the region of the loins after it, we will tell you why Dick Varley wouldn’t have listened to that advice.  Can a man feel as if his joints were wrenched out of their sockets, and listen to advice—­be that advice good or bad?  Can he feel as though these joints were trying to re-set and re-dislocate themselves perpetually, and listen to advice?  Can he feel as if he were sitting down on red-hot iron, when he’s not sitting down at all, and listen to advice?  Can he—­but no! why pursue the subject.  Poor Dick spent that night in misery, and the greater part of the following day in sleep, to make up for it.

When he got up to breakfast in the afternoon he felt much better, but shaky.

“Now, pup,” he said, stretching himself, “we’ll go and see our horse. Ours, pup; yours and mine:  didn’t you help to catch him, eh, pup?”

Crusoe acknowledged the fact with a wag and a playful “bow-wow—­wow-oo-ow!” and followed his master to the place where the horse had been picketed.  It was standing there quite quiet, but looking a little timid.

Dick went boldly up to it, and patted its head and stroked its nose, for nothing is so likely to alarm either a tame or a wild horse as any appearance of timidity or hesitation on the part of those who approach them.

After treating it thus for a short time, he stroked down its neck, and then its shoulders—­the horse eying him all the time nervously.  Gradually he stroked its back and limbs gently, and walked quietly round and round it once or twice, sometimes approaching and sometimes going away, but never either hesitating or doing anything abruptly.  This done, he went down to the stream and filled his cap with water and carried it to the horse, which snuffed suspiciously and backed a little; so he laid the cap down, and went up and patted him again.  Presently he took up the cap and carried it to his nose.  The poor creature was almost choking with thirst, so that, the moment he understood what was in the cap, he buried his lips in it and sucked it up.

This was a great point gained:  he had accepted a benefit at the hands of his new master; he had become a debtor to man, and no doubt he felt the obligation.  Dick filled the cap and the horse emptied it again, and again, and again, until its burning thirst was slaked.  Then Dick went up to his shoulder, patted him, undid the line that fastened him, and vaulted lightly on his back!