THE GRAND PEAK
The Lieutenant's prediction that the following evening should see us encamped at the foot of the Grand Peak was not borne out by the event. Notwithstanding our many days on the prairies, we were yet far from realizing the deception of distances in this high altitude and clear, dry atmosphere.
That next day we lost many hours on a large fork of the river, where the turning of the Spanish trace led us to believe that the party had set off southward. Finding that they had returned and continued their ascent of the main stream, we did likewise. This gave us but little progress for that day.
But the next morning we set out, confident that we should reach the Grand Peak within a few hours. Our astonishment was great when, after marching nearly twenty-five miles, we found ourselves at evening seemingly no nearer the mountains than at sunrise. Yet we had thought to encamp at their base that night!
The following two days we spent in hunting buffalo and jerking the meat. The marrow bones gave us a feast fit for a king,—fit even for citizens of the Republic.
The second day of our march onward, still keeping to the Spanish trace, we at last found ourselves appreciably nearing the mountains. What was not so welcome, we came upon the fresh traces of two Indians who had ascended the river very recently. Warned by this, we proceeded in the morning more than ever wary of ambuscades. There was good reason for our precautions.
Scarcely had the Lieutenant, Baroney, and myself ridden out in advance of the party, when of a sudden the interpreter sang out: "Voilà! Les sauvages!"
A moment later we also caught sight of the Indians, a number of whom were circling about us on the high ground, while others raced directly upon us out of the dense groves of cottonwoods. All were afoot; which, taken with the unmistakable cut of their hair and their red and black paint, told us all too plainly that they were a war party of Pawnees returning from an unsuccessful raid upon one of the Western tribes.
Knowing well how apt are the warriors to be evil-tempered after the humiliation of a failure to strike their enemy, I prepared to sell my life as dearly as might be. All the probabilities pointed to the supposition that the party was made up of Skidis, or Loups, and I, for one, had no desire to become a captive in their hands. It was enough to have escaped in my boyhood from the stake and fire of the Shawnees. I had no intention of now letting myself be crucified and mangled and burned as a sacrifice to the morning star by these prairie savages.
But Pike, cool as ever, restrained Baroney and myself from firing, and the Indians seemed to justify his moderation by flinging down their weapons and running to us with outstretched arms. In a moment they were all about us, in a jostling, jabbering crowd, patting and hugging us as though we had been blood kinsmen. So urgent were they with their friendly requests for us to dismount that we finally complied. On the instant an Indian was upon each horse and riding off.