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

“They are spies,” said the lieutenant. “We cannot get rid of them without trouble, and I have orders to avoid trouble. We shall have to take them in.”

So he and Stub waited, and it was just as well, for soon the regular trail up river to the stockade was reached; the two horsemen struck into it, and forged ahead, peering eagerly. The trail crossed the fork above the stockade—and the first thing the two horsemen knew they were stopped in short order by Alex Roy who was posted as sentinel.

That astonished them again. They could just glimpse the stockade, they heard Alex challenge them, and saw his gun—and ducking and dodging they raced back, to the lieutenant.

“Do not fear. Come,” he spoke.

He led them on; they left their horses outside, and, still frightened, followed him and Stub through an opening in the stockade, which was being used until the ditch and the hole were ready.

They stayed all that day. The men had orders to watch them, but not to talk with them. They stared about as much as they could. They asked several times where the Americans’ horses were, and how many men the lieutenant had. Lieutenant Pike said that these were only a part of his men, and that he had marched without horses, through the snow. He was going down the Red River, holding councils with the Indians on the borders of the United States. If the governor at Santa Fe would send somebody who spoke good French or English, he would explain everything.

The dragoon and the Pueblo did not believe; and when they rode away in the morning they were as suspicious as ever. They said they would be in Santa Fe in two days with the lieutenant’s message to the governor, whose name was Don Joaquin del Real Alencaster. The lieutenant had given them a few presents, which appeared to please them. The Pueblo gave the lieutenant some deer meat, part of a goose, a sack of meal and pieces of flat, hard-baked bread.

Everybody was glad to see them go, but——

“It’s an ill wind that brought ’em,” Sergeant Meek remarked. “Not blaming him or the cap’n, the doctor did it. To be sure the Spanish would set out to s’arch the country. Unless I’m mistaken, we’ll see more of ’em.”