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

“An’ aren’t ye cold, boy?” queried John Sparks. “In only your skin an’ a buff’lo robe?”

“No cold,” Stub asserted. That was all the Pawnees wore. He was used to it.

The day dawned clear. After eating, Sergeant Meek marched the men up along the river. With Lieutenant Pike and the doctor, Stub crossed to help find the Spanish trail. They had to break a way through the ice. The ice cut the horses’ legs, the stinging water splashed high, soaking moccasins and drenching the lieutenant and the doctor above the knees. The lieutenant wore thin blue cotton leggins—a sort of trousers called overalls; now these clung to him tightly.

Stub rather preferred his own skin, for it shed water.

The Spanish had camped over here. There were lots of horse sign showing through the snow, in a space of more than a mile. The Spanish seemed to have grown in numbers. It was an old camp, and the trail out of it had been flattened by buffalo tracks, and by the snows and rains. So they three—Lieutenant Pike, the doctor, and Stub—made circles, as they rode up river, to cut the trail farther on.

They did not find it until noon. But they found something else: Indian signs which were not older than three days. A party of warriors were ahead. Stub picked up a worn moccasin: “Pawnee—Grand Pawnee,” he announced, when he handed it to the lieutenant “War party. All on foot. Mebbe so many.” And he opened and shut his fingers five times.

The lieutenant and the doctor examined the moccasin. After that they rode more rapidly, as if anxious to get to their soldiers.

The soldiers also had crossed the river, on account of bad travel, and were camped on this, the south side. In the morning they all marched by the Spanish trail, along the river, into the west, over a country covered with salt. There were more Indian signs. It looked as though twenty warriors had been marching in the same direction only a short time before; and fresh horse tracks pointed down river.

Whether the Indians were the same Pawnees or not, was hard to tell. But the horse tracks looked to be wild-horse tracks.

“Sure, wouldn’t it be fun to ketch a few o’ them wild hosses, Stub, lad?” proposed John Sparks, in camp. “We need ’em. Would ye know how?”