Joe Blunt and Henri became leading men in the councils of the Mustang Valley; but Dick Varley preferred the woods, although, as long as his mother lived, he hovered round her cottage--going off sometimes for a day, sometimes for a week, but never longer. After her head was laid in the dust, Dick took altogether to the woods, with Crusoe and Charlie, the wild horse, as his only companions, and his mother's Bible in the breast of his hunting-shirt. And soon Dick, the bold hunter, and his dog Crusoe became renowned in the frontier settlements from the banks of the Yellowstone River to the Gulf of Mexico. Many a grizzly bear did the famous "silver rifle" lay low, and many a wild, exciting chase and adventure did Dick go through; but during his occasional visits to the Mustang Valley he was wont to say to Joe Blunt and Henri--with whom he always sojourned--that "nothin' he ever felt or saw came up to his _first_ grand dash over the western prairies into the heart of the Rocky Mountains." And in saying this, with enthusiasm in his eye and voice, Dick invariably appealed to, and received a ready affirmative glance from, his early companion and his faithful loving friend, the dog Crusoe. THE END. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dog Crusoe and His Master by Robert Michael Ballantyne