Rising and shaking the snow from his garments, he whistled loudly to Crusoe, and, on listening, heard him whining piteously. He hurried to the place whence the sound came, and found that the poor dog had fallen into a deep pit or crevice in the rocks, which had been concealed from view by a crust of snow, and he was now making frantic but unavailing efforts to leap out.
Dick soon freed him from his prison by means of his belt, which he let down for the dog to grasp, and then returned to camp with as much deer-meat as he could carry. Dear meat it certainly was to him, for it had nearly cost him his life, and left him all black and blue for weeks after. Happily no bones were broken, so the incident only confined him a day to his encampment.
Soon after this the snow fell thicker than ever, and it became evident that an unusually early winter was about to set in among the mountains. This was a terrible calamity, for if the regular snow of winter set in, it would be impossible for him either to advance or retreat.
While he was sitting on his bearskin by the camp-fire one day, thinking anxiously what he should do, and feeling that he must either make the attempt to escape or perish miserably in that secluded spot, a strange, unwonted sound struck upon his ear, and caused both him and Crusoe to spring violently to their feet and listen. Could he be dreaming?--it seemed like the sound of human voices. 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.
_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."