He was first to hear the sound, and by his
restive actions to draw the attention of the fur-traders to it. As a
precautionary measure they all sprang up and stood by their horses to
soothe them, but as a brook with a belt of bushes and quarter of a
mile of plain intervened between their camp and the mustangs as they
flew past, they had little or no trouble in restraining them. Not
so, however, with Charlie. At the very moment that his master was
congratulating himself on the supposed security of his position, he
wrenched the halter from the hand of him who held it, burst through
the barrier of felled trees that had been thrown round the camp,
cleared the brook at a bound, and with a wild hilarious neigh resumed
his old place in the ranks of the free-born mustangs of the prairie.
Little did Dick think, when the flood of horses swept past him, that
his own good steed was there, rejoicing in his recovered liberty. But
Crusoe knew it. Ay, the wind had borne down the information to his
acute nose before the living storm burst upon the camp; and when
Charlie rushed past, with the long tough halter trailing at his heels,
Crusoe sprang to his side, seized the end of the halter with his
teeth, and galloped off along with him.
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