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

“Good!” the lieutenant praised. “We’ll see.”

The hunters killed seventeen buffalo, and wounded many more. When the best of the meat had been smoked, there were nine hundred pounds of it, and one hundred and thirty-six marrow-bones. The camp finished off the marrow-bones in one meal, as a feast before marching on to storm the big blue mountain.

VIII
BAD HEARTS IN THE WAY

“Des sauvages (Indians)!”

Thus Baroney shouted, pointing, from where he had checked his horse on the edge of a little rise overlooking a dip in the trail.

They all had been marching two more days, and had covered about forty more miles. This made seven days’ travel, counting the two days of meat camp, and eighty-five miles, since the Big Blue Mountain had first been sighted. Now it and the lesser mountains were much plainer.

But here were the Indians, sure enough. The lieutenant had rather been expecting them. Yesterday the fresh tracks of the two men, again, had given warning. So the column were marching close together.

The Indians, on foot, were running toward the column, from some trees on the river bank, at the right.