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

Horses were provided, as promised by the Spanish officer. Riding comfortably on these, and escorted by fifty of the dragoons and militia and the two officers (whose names were Lieutenant Don Ignatio Saltelo and Lieutenant Don Bartholomew Fernandez), after dinner they rode twelve miles westward up the fork to the Spanish camp. Now they numbered only Lieutenant Pike, Privates Freegift Stout, Alex Roy, Hugh Menaugh, William Gordon, Jacob Carter, John Brown, and Jack Pursley otherwise Stub. Corporal Jerry Jackson and Private John Mountjoy remained at the stockade, with the other fifty Spanish soldiers, to wait for Sergeant Meek, and Private Terry Miller, who were bringing in, across the mountains, John Sparks and Tom Dougherty (lacking feet and fingers), Baroney Vasquez and interpreter, Pat Smith, and the horses.

Truly, the little American column had become much scattered.

“Jinks! I’d like to be there at the reception and see the sergeant’s face,” Alex Roy chuckled. “’Specially when he learns we ain’t been on the Red River at all!”

“It may seem like a joke, but it’s a rough one,” quoth William Gordon. “A look at the cap’n’s face is enough for me. To think, after all these months he’s never got anywhere. ’Twill be a great report that he’ll have to turn in, ’less he aims to l’arn something of the Spanish country. At any rate, we’ve hauled down our flag, and given up our fort and I’m sorry for him. He deserved better.”

XX
STUB REACHES END O’ TRAIL

“Santa Fe! The city of Santa Fe! Behold!”

Those were the cries adown the delighted column. Here they were, at last; but this was the evening of the fifth day since leaving the camp, and the distance was more than one hundred and sixty miles. The two spies, who had said that Santa Fe was only two days’ journey from the stockade, had lied.

The first stage of the trip had been very cold, in deep snow. Then, on the third day, or March 1, they had emerged into a country of warmth and grass and buds, at the first of the Mexican settlements—a little town named Aqua Caliente or Warm Springs. Hooray!