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 were gone all day and the night. When they came in, the next afternoon, they said that they had discovered fresh signs of men and horses, south. The lieutenant called the garrison together and issued strict orders. The two spies had left five days ago; and if Santa Fe was only two days’ march distant, soldiers from there were likely to appear at any moment now.

“We must especially watch out for Indians, my lads,” he directed. “The tribes hereabouts are doubtless under the influence of the Spanish government in New Mexico. When any strangers are sighted loitering about or passing, you are to retire unobserved, if possible. If they see you, you are not to run, however, nor permit them to approach you with the idea of disarming you or taking you prisoner. Should you be unable to evade them, you are to guard your liberty and bring them to the fort, where I will attend to them.”

A sentry was posted all day on the top of a hill at the edge of the stockade prairie, from where he had a fine view up and down the fork and along the main river also. During the nights another sentry kept watch from one of the bastions or little block-houses on the land-side corners of the stockade.

The stockade had been enclosed by the log walls, the pickets had been planted, and within a day or two the outside ditch would be ready for the water.

On February 24 the lieutenant took Stub again upon another scout and hunt. The two spies had been gone seven days, and nothing had been heard from them. He was getting nervous while waiting for the sergeant and Terry to return with the horses, Baroney, Pat, and John and Tom. Meat was low; the men themselves had been too busy to hunt—but the water was in the ditch and everything was snug and shipshape.

He and Stub were out two days, scouting eastward, to examine the traveled road along which the Spanish might come. They made a circle and arrived “home,” lugging the meat of three deer, about nine o’clock at night.

Corporal Jerry greeted them, after the challenge of Freegift Stout, who was the guard in the bastion.

“We were beginnin’ to be scared for you, sir,” he said. “We didn’t know but what the Injuns or the Spanish had taken you.”

“All quiet here, corporal?”

“Yes, sir; all quiet.”