hought struck him.

He turned up a little of the sand with his fingers, and, pointing to
the hole, cried, "_Seek him out, pup_!"

Ha! Crusoe understood _that_. Many and many a time had he unhoused
rabbits, and squirrels, and other creatures at that word of command;
so, without a moment's delay, he commenced to dig down into the sand,
every now and then stopping for a moment and shoving in his nose, and
snuffing interrogatively, as if he fully expected to find a buffalo at
the bottom 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.

O