Its usefulness as a trading-station had nearly departed, for already the Indians were leaving that part of the country, and those who remained were kept too busy fighting to have any time for trading. Its stout log stockade was, however, valuable to its builder as a protection against attacks from Indians led by one of his own sons. Their mother was a Cheyenne squaw, and though they, together with their only sister, had been educated in St. Louis, the same as white children, they had preferred to follow the fortunes of their mother's people on returning to the Plains. Now the Cheyennes had no more daring leader than George Bent, nor was there a girl in the tribe so beautiful as his sister. The little fort, admirably located on a high bluff overlooking the river, was filled with a curious mixture of old Plainsmen, Indians, half-breed children, ponies, mules, burros, and pet fawns. It was a place of noise and confusion at once bewildering and interesting.
At the end of fifty miles from the point at which they entered the Arkansas Valley, the explorers caught their first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains, two white clouds that they knew to be the snow-capped summits of the Spanish Peaks, a hundred miles away.
Here the expedition was divided. The first and third divisions were to cross the river and proceed southwesterly, by way of the Raton Mountains and Fort Union, to Santa Fé; while Mr. Hobart was to take the second still farther up the Arkansas Valley, and almost due west to the famous Sangre de Cristo Pass through the mountains, just north of the Spanish Peaks. For two weeks longer they worked their way slowly but steadily across the burning Plains, towards the mountains that almost seemed to recede from them as they advanced; though each day disclosed new peaks, while those already familiar loomed up higher and grander with every mile. Finally they were so near at hand that the weary toilers, choked with the alkaline dust of the Plains, and scorched with their fervent heat, could feast their eyes on the green slopes, cool, dark valleys, and tumbling cascades, rushing down from glittering snow-fields. How they longed to be among them, and with what joy did they at length leave the treeless country of which they were so tired and enter the timbered foot-hills!
Now, how deliciously cool were the nights, and how they enjoyed the roaring camp-fires. What breathless plunges they took in ice-cold streams of crystal water. How good fresh venison tasted after weeks of salt bacon and dried buffalo meat, and how eagerly they ate raw onions, and even raw potatoes, obtained at the occasional Mexican ranches found nestled here and there in the lower valleys.
"I tell you," said Glen to Binney Gibbs, who had by this time become his firm friend, "it pays to go without fresh vegetables for a couple of months, just to find out what fine things onions and potatoes are."
Chapter XXVIII.
LOST IN A MOUNTAIN SNOW-STORM.
A week was spent on the eastern slope of the mountains, running lines through the Mosca and Cuchara passes. Finally, a camp was made in a forest of balsam-firs, beside a great spring of ice-water, that bubbled from a granite basin at the summit of the Sangre de Cristo, nine thousand feet above sea-level. To Glen and Binney, who had always dwelt in a flat country, and knew nothing of mountains, this was a new and delightful experience. They never tired of gazing off on the superb panorama outspread below them. To the east, the view was so vast and boundless that it seemed as though the distant blue of the horizon must be that of the ocean itself, and that they were spanning half the breadth of a continent in a single sight. At their feet lay the Plains they had just crossed, like a great green map on which dark lines of timber and gleams of light marked the Arkansas and its tributary streams, whose waters would mingle with those of the Mississippi.
On the other hand, they could see, across the broad basin of the San Luis Valley, other ranges of unknown mountains, whose mysteries they were yet to explore. Through this western valley, flowing southward, wound the shining ribbon of the Rio Grande. Both north and south of them were mountain-peaks. To climb to the very summit of one of these was Glen's present ambition, and his longing eyes were turned more often to the snow-capped dome that rose in solemn majesty on the south side of the pass than in any other direction. He even succeeded in persuading Binney Gibbs that to climb that mountain would be just a little better fun than anything else that could be suggested. Still, he did not see any prospect of their being allowed to make the attempt, and so tried not to think of it.