There was a pretty violent
dispute on the subject, but at length it was agreed that they should
spare his life in the meantime, and perhaps have a dog-dance round him
when they got to their wigwams.
This dance, of which Crusoe was to be the chief though passive
performer, is peculiar to some of the tribes east of the Rocky
Mountains, and consists in killing a dog and cutting out its liver,
which is afterwards sliced into shreds or strings and hung on a pole
about the height of a man's head. A band of warriors then come and
dance wildly round this pole, and each one in succession goes up to
the raw liver and bites a piece off it, without, however, putting his
hands near it. Such is the dog-dance, and to such was poor Crusoe
destined by his fierce captors, especially by the one whose throat
still bore very evident marks of his teeth.
But Crusoe was much too clever a dog to be disposed of in so
disgusting a manner. He had privately resolved in his own mind that
he would escape; but the hopelessness of his ever carrying that
resolution into effect would have been apparent to any one who could
have seen the way in which his muzzle was secured, and his four paws
were tied together in a bunch, as he hung suspended across the saddle
of one of the savages!
This particular party of Indians who had followed Dick Varley
determined not to wait for the return of their comrades who were in
pursuit of the other two hunters, but to go straight home, so for
several days they galloped away over the prairie.
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