The gritty John Sparks stayed, to kill a cow if he might; the other three returned to camp with the bull hides.
Now the men, with numbed fingers, were busy making moccasins, around the fire, and not envying John the buffalo-hunter.
Alex Roy and Bill Gordon came in, with the strayed horse in tow, but at dusk John had not appeared.
“He’s still after his cow, and won’t quit till he fetches meat. That’s him! Well, he has a buffalo-robe and his flint and steel, so we’ll see him in the morning.”
They didn’t worry about John. He was a good hunter and could take care of himself.
The lieutenant had decided not to wait for him, but to pick him up on the way. The next morning, which was the fifth morning, he broke camp at five o’clock, long before daylight; and sure enough, before they had marched far they found John. He rode in on them, with a load of cow meat. To-day they marched twenty miles, afoot and ahorse; killed two more buffalo and six wild turkeys; and what with the new moccasins and plenty of meat they thought themselves well fixed.
The country steadily grew rougher and the march led higher, but the soil was gravelly and the snow less than below. Pretty soon the Spanish trail was lost again. From camp everybody went out, searching for it, on both sides of the river.
“Come along wid us, lad,” invited Tom Dougherty, of Stub; and afoot Stub ascended the south side of the river with Tom, and John Sparks, and John Mountjoy. It was a good squad. Tom was scarcely more than a boy, himself: a young warrior of twenty years.
Presently they struck a broad horse-trail, pointing up-river.
“We’ll see where it goes to,” said John Sparks. They followed it as rapidly as they could. The river flowed down shallow and rippling and ice-bordered, among reddish, bare, rounded hills sprinkled with cedar and with snow patches. Far northward they saw, every now and then, the glistening Grand Peak. It was hard to lose this Grand Peak.