xpressible by a dog's tail, unless he has
studied the subject--the wag, the waggle, the cock, the droop, the
slope, the wriggle! Away with description--it is impotent and valueless
here!

As we have said, Crusoe was meek and mild. He had been bitten, on the
sly, by half the ill-natured curs in the settlement, and had only shown
his teeth in return. He had no enmities--though several enemies--and he
had a thousand friends, particularly among the ranks of the weak and the
persecuted, whom he always protected and avenged when opportunity
offered. A single instance of this kind will serve to show his
character.

One day Dick and Crusoe were sitting on a rock beside the lake--the same
identical rock near which, when a pup, the latter had received his first
lesson. They were conversing as usual, for Dick had elicited such a
fund of intelligence from the dog's mind, and had injected such wealth
of wisdom into it, that he felt convinced it understood every word he
said.

"This is capital weather, Crusoe; ain't it pup?"

Crusoe made a motion with his head which was quite as significant as a
nod.

"Ha! my pup, I wish that you and I might go and have a slap at the
grizzly bars and a look at the Rocky Mountains. Wouldn't it be nuts,
pup?"

Crusoe looked dubious.

"What, you don't agree with me! Now, tell me, pup, wouldn't ye like to
grip a bar?"

Still Crusoe looked dubious, but made a gentle motion with his tail, as
though he would have said, "I've seen neither Rocky Mountains nor
grizzly bars, and know nothin' about 'em, but I'm open to conviction."

"You're a brave pup," rejoined Dick, stroking the dog's huge head
affectionately. "I wouldn't give you for ten times your weight in
golden dollars--if there be sich things."

Crusoe made no reply whatever to this. He regarded it as a truism
unworthy of notice; he evidently felt that a comparison between love and
dollars was preposterous.

At this point in the conversation a little dog with a lame leg hobbled
to the edge of the rocks in front of the spot where Dick was seated, and
looked down into the water, which was deep there. Whether it did so for
the purpose of admiring its very plain visage in the liquid mirror, or
finding out what was going on among the fish, we cannot say, as it never
told us; but at that moment a big, clumsy, savage-looking dog rushed out
from the neighbouring thicket and began to worry it.

"Punish him, Crusoe," said Dick quickly.