For a moment he
stood with his eyes rivetted on the ground, his lips apart, and his
nostrils distended, as he listened with the utmost intensity. Then he
darted out and bounded round the edge of a rock which concealed
an extensive but narrow valley from his view, and there, to his
amazement, he beheld a band of about a hundred human beings advancing
on horseback slowly through the snow.
CHAPTER XVIII.
_A surprise, and a piece of good news--The fur-traders--Crusoe proved,
and the Peigans pursued_.
Dick's first and most natural impulse, on beholding this band, was to
mount his horse and fly, for his mind naturally enough recurred to the
former rough treatment he had experienced at the hands of Indians. On
second thoughts, however, he considered it wiser to throw himself upon
the hospitality of the strangers; "for," thought he, "they can but
kill me, an' if I remain here I'm like to die at any rate."
So Dick mounted his wild horse, grasped his rifle in his right hand,
and, followed by Crusoe, galloped full tilt down the valley to meet
them.
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