In one moment its life was gone.

In less than a minute its body was gone too--feathers and bones and all--down Crusoe's ravenous throat.
On the identical spot Crusoe lay down and slept like a top for four hours.

At the end of that time he jumped up, bolted a scrap of skin that somehow had been overlooked at supper, and flew straight over the prairie to the spot where he had had the scuffle with the Indian.

He came to the edge of the river, took precisely the same leap that his master had done before him, and came out on the other side a good deal higher up than Dick had done, for the dog had no savages to dodge, and was, as we have said before, a powerful swimmer.
It cost him a good deal of running about to find the trail, and it was nearly dark before he resumed his journey; then, putting his keen nose to the ground, he ran step by step over Dick's track, and at last found him, as we have shown, on the banks of the salt creek.
It is quite impossible to describe the intense joy which filled Dick's heart on again beholding his favourite.

Only those who have lost and found such an one can know it.