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

“He’s gone to the palace, to talk with the governor again. You and I’ll talk with each other. I came especially to see him; thought maybe he might help me, and I hoped to talk with one of his kind. American blood is powerful scarce in Santa Fe. There’s only one simon-pure Yankee, except myself. He’s Sol Colly; used to be a sergeant in the army and was captured six years ago along with the rest of a party that invaded Texas. But he doesn’t live here. A Frenchman or two, here from the States, don’t count. My, my, it’s good to speak English and to hear it. As soon as the lieutenant learnt my name he remembered about you; but he couldn’t wait, so Don Bartholomew went to find you. Now you’ll go home with me, where we can be snug and private.”

He spoke in Spanish to Lieutenant Bartholomew, who nodded.

“Certainly, certainly, señor. Until to-morrow morning.”

And Jack gladly marched home hand-in-hand with his father, James Pursley, of Kentucky, the discoverer of gold in Colorado, and the first American resident in Santa Fe.

XXI
GOOD-BY TO LIEUTENANT PIKE

The lieutenant and men were to be sent clear to the city of Chihuahua, more than six hundred miles southward, where the commanding general of all Mexico had headquarters.

An officer and two soldiers from Governor Alencaster had called for him again in the morning immediately after breakfast. He returned to the Lieutenant Bartholomew house fuming. Stub never before had seen him so angry.

“I protested with all my power,” he related, to Lieutenant Bartholomew and Stub’s father. “I said that I should not go unless forced to by military strength. The governor agreed to give me a paper certifying to the fact that I march only as compelled to, but our detention as prisoners is a breach of faith. I consented to come to Santa Fe, for the purpose of explaining to him my accidental presence within his frontiers; and I have so explained. He has even read my papers and my commission. Now he orders us still further into the interior.”

“You have my sympathy, señor,” proffered Lieutenant Bartholomew.