uttered this sagacious remark, he threw his rifle into the hollow
of his left arm, turned round, and strode off with a long, slow step
towards his own cottage.

Blunt was an American by birth, but of Irish extraction, and to an
attentive ear there was a faint echo of the _brogue_ in his tone, which
seemed to have been handed down to him as a threadbare and almost
worn-out heirloom.

Poor Crusoe was singed almost naked. His wretched tail seemed little
better than a piece of wire filed off to a point, and he vented his
misery in piteous squeaks as the sympathetic Varley confided him
tenderly to the care of his mother. How Fan managed to cure him no one
can tell, but cure him she did, for, in the course of a few weeks,
Crusoe was as well, and sleek, and fat as ever.

CHAPTER TWO.

A SHOOTING MATCH AND ITS CONSEQUENCES--NEW FRIENDS INTRODUCED TO THE
READER--CRUSOE AND HIS MOTHER CHANGE MASTERS.

Shortly after the incident narrated in the last chapter, the squatters
of the Mustang Valley lost their leader. Major Hope suddenly announced
his intention of quitting the settlement, and returning to the civilised
world. Private matters, he said, required his presence there--matters
which he did not choose to speak of but which would prevent his
returning again to reside among them. Go he must, and, being a man of
determination, go he did; but before going he distributed all his goods
and chattels among the settlers. He even gave away his rifle, and Fan,
and Crusoe. These last, however, he resolved should go together; and as
they were well worth having, he announced that he would give them to the
best shot in the valley. He stipulated that the winner should escort
him to the nearest settlement eastward, after which he might return with
the rifle on his shoulder.

Accordingly, a long level piece of ground on the river's bank, with a
perpendicular cliff at the end of it, was selected as the shooting
ground, and, on the appointed day, at the appointed hour, the
competitors began to assemble.

"Well, lad, first as usual," exclaimed Joe Blunt, as he reached the
ground and found Dick Varley there before him.

"I've bin here more than an hour lookin' for a new kind o' flower that
Jack Morgan told me he'd seen. And I've found it too. Look here; did
you ever see one like it before?"

Blunt leaned his rifle against a tree, and carefully examined the
flower.

"Why, yes, I've seed a-many o' them up about the Rocky Mo