Lost with Lieutenant Pike / How from the Pawnee Village the boy named Scar Head marched with the young American Chief clear into the Snowy Mountains; how in the dead of winter they searched for the Lost River and thought that they had found it; and how the Spanish Soldiery came upon them and took them down to Santa Fé of New Mexico, where another surprise awaited them

by Edwin L. Sabin

XIV
A TRAIL OF SURPRISES

The lieutenant had explored the source of this Red River far enough. He was ready to march on down, for the plains and the United States post of Natchitoches above the mouth in Louisiana. Everybody was glad.

The big meals of buffalo meat had made several of the men, and Stub also, quite ill; so that on the day after Christmas the march covered only seven miles. The tent was turned into a hospital, and the lieutenant and the doctor slept out in the snow.

The Great White Mountains, far to the east, had been in sight from high ground; the river appeared to lead in that direction. But here at the lower end of the bottom-land other mountains closed in. The river coursed through, and everybody rather believed that by following it they all would come out, in two or three days, into the open.

That proved to be a longer job than expected, and the toughest yet. The river, ice-bound but full of air-holes, sometimes broadened a little, and gave hope, but again was hemmed clear to its borders by tremendous precipices too steep to climb. The poor horses slipped and floundered upon the ice and rocks; in places they had to be unpacked and the loads were carried on by hand.

Soon the lieutenant was ordering sledges built, to relieve the horses of the loads; men and horses both pulled them—and now and then sledge and horse broke through the ice and needs must be hauled out of the water.

Twelve miles march, another of sixteen miles, five miles, eight miles, ten and three-quarter miles, about five miles—and the river still twisted, an icy trail, deep set among the cliffs and pinnacles and steep snowy slopes that offered no escape to better country.

The horses were so crippled that some could scarcely walk; the men were getting well bruised, too; the dried buffalo meat had dwindled to a few mouthfuls apiece, and the only game were mountain sheep that kept out of range. The doctor and John Brown had been sent ahead, to hunt them and hang the carcasses beside the river, for the party to pick up on the way.

From camp this evening the lieutenant and Baroney climbed out, to the top, in order to see ahead. They came down with good news.