m of it. Then he would resume again, one paw after another so
fast that you could scarce see them going "hand over hand" as sailors
would have called it--while the sand flew out between his hind-legs in a
continuous shower. When the sand accumulated so much behind him as to
impede his motions he scraped it out of his way, and set to work again
with tenfold earnestness. After a good while he paused and looked up at
Dick with an "it--won't--do,--I--fear,--there's--nothing--here"
expression on his face.

"Seek him out, pup!" repeated Dick.

"Oh! very good," mutely answered the dog, and went at it again, tooth
and nail, harder than ever.

In the course of a quarter of an hour there was a deep yawning hole in
the sand, into which Dick peered with intense anxiety. The bottom
appeared slightly _damp_. Hope now reanimated Dick Varley, and by
various devices he succeeded in getting the dog to scrape away a sort of
tunnel from the hole, into which he might roll himself and put down his
lips to drink when the water should rise high enough. Impatiently and
anxiously he lay watching the moisture slowly accumulate in the bottom
of the hole, drop by drop, and while he gazed he fell into a troubled,
restless slumber, and dreamed that Crusoe's return was a dream, and that
he was alone again perishing for want of water.

When he awakened the hole was half full of clear water, and Crusoe was
lapping it greedily.

"Back, pup!" he shouted, as he crept down to the hole and put his
trembling lips to the water. It was brackish, but drinkable, and as
Dick drank deeply of it he esteemed it at that moment better than
nectar. Here he lay for half an hour alternately drinking and gazing in
surprise at his own emaciated visage as reflected in the pool.

The same afternoon Crusoe, in a private hunting excursion of his own,
discovered and caught a prairie-hen, which he quietly proceeded to
devour on the spot, when Dick, who saw what had occurred, whistled to
him.

Obedience was engrained in every fibre of Crusoe's mental and corporeal
being. He did not merely answer at once to the call--he _sprang_ to it,
leaving the prairie-hen untasted.

"Fetch it, pup," cried Dick eagerly as the dog came up.

In a few moments the hen was at his feet. Dick's circumstances could
not brook the delay of cookery; he gashed the bird with his knife and
drank the blood, and then gave the flesh to the dog, while he crept to
the pool again for another dr