What mattered it to Dick?
He was far away in the shady groves of the Mustang Valley, chasing the deer at times, but more frequently cooling his limbs and sporting with Crusoe in the bright blue lake.

Now he was in his mother's cottage, telling her how he had thought of her when far away on the prairie, and what a bright, sweet word it was she had whispered in his ear--so unexpectedly, too.

Anon he was scouring over the plains on horseback, with the savages at his heels; and at such times Dick would spring with almost supernatural strength from the ground, and run madly over the burning plain; but, as if by a species of fascination, he always returned to the salt river, and sank exhausted by its side, or plunged helplessly into its waters.
These sudden immersions usually restored him for a short time to reason, and he would crawl up the bank and gnaw a morsel of the maple sugar; but he could not eat much, for it was in a tough, compact cake, which his jaws had not power to break.

All that day and the next night he lay on the banks of the salt stream, or rushed wildly over the plain.

It was about noon of the second day after his attack that he crept slowly out of the water, into which he had plunged a few seconds before.