At sunset the lieutenant and Mr. Preuss and Benoit appeared, descending from the same ridge; they had waded the river to cut across some bends. And right glad were all the voyagers to have the hot fires and the roasting meat awaiting them.
“Told you you couldn’t get through with that thar boat,” reminded Kit Carson, mildly, to the lieutenant.
“Well,” responded Lieutenant Frémont, “we were under instruction to survey the Platte, and I felt that we should obey them to the fullest scope. We did our best.”
The lieutenant had only one moccasin, and his feet were prickly with cactus spines; but the next morning he seemed to be well recovered. Basil was sent up to the foot of the Narrows, to bring down the few other articles that had been rescued and left there. They did not amount to much. All the instruments but the sextant were lost. However, the saving of the record books was good fortune, and the instruments had performed their principal work.
Now Fort Laramie was near. The next day Cache Camp was reached, and the carts and other property which had been left there in hiding a month almost to a day were found undisturbed. With mules hitched to the carts again the expedition might victoriously trundle on for Fort Laramie. The Black Hills loomed nearer, on either hand; and with the Stars and Stripes in the advance the cavalcade on August 31 emerged from that little defile which afforded the first, as it had afforded the last, glimpse of the post.
From the parapet of the post burst a puff of white smoke; and following, echoed a dull “Boom!” The post must have seen the flag. “Boom! Boom!” saluted the single brass cannon, as on marched the cavalcade; presently smaller puffs of smoke welled out, from beside the post walls; that was rifles. Two figures came galloping. They were Henry and Randolph.
“You said forty days—you said that you’d be back in forty days,” they proclaimed. “This is the forty-second. We’ve been watching for two days. The Indians have been watching, too, and the minute you left the mouth of the valley they saw you and recognized the flag. Hear the cannon?”
“Crack! Crack! Whang!” answered the expedition’s rifles, to the welcome by the fort; and the garrison rushed out, with glad tongue and friendly hand.