of himself.
The lieutenant had decided not to wait for him, but to pick him up on
the way. The next morning, which was the fifth morning, he broke camp
at five o’clock, long before daylight; and sure enough, before they had
marched far they found John. He rode in on them, with a load of cow
meat. To-day they marched twenty miles, afoot and ahorse; killed two
more buffalo and six wild turkeys; and what with the new moccasins and
plenty of meat they thought themselves well fixed.
The country steadily grew rougher and the march led higher, but the
soil was gravelly and the snow less than below. Pretty soon the Spanish
trail was lost again. From camp everybody went out, searching for it,
on both sides of the river.
“Come along wid us, lad,” invited Tom Dougherty, of Stub; and afoot
Stub ascended the south side of the river with Tom, and John Sparks,
and John Mountjoy. It was a good squad. Tom was scarcely more than a
boy, himself: a young warrior of twenty years.
Presently they struck a broad horse-trail, pointing up-river.
“We’ll see where it goes to,” said John Sparks. They followed it as
rapidly as they could. The river flowed down shallow and rippling and
ice-bordered, among reddish, bare, rounded hills sprinkled with cedar
and with snow patches. Far northward they saw, every now and then, the
glistening Grand Peak. It was hard to lose this Grand Peak.
About noon they emerged from the long valley of the river into a
broadening, with snow peaks shimmering in the distances, and a line of
high flat-topped hills crossing the route before.
“Hist! There be Injuns or them Spanish, likely!” Tom warned, pointing
ahead.
They halted and peered.
“No. I take it they’re some of our own men,” said John Mountjoy.
“What do ye say, Stub?” John Sparks queried.
Stub nodded. His eyes were true eyes.
“No Injuns. Our men,” he asserted.
So they went on, toward the flat-topped hills, and met the parties of
Sergeant Meek and Baroney.
“Hello to you,” John Sparks greeted “What luck?”
“There’s no good your going much further up this side,” answered
Sergeant Meek. “The trail ends, and you’ll get nowhere.”
“Why?”
“You see where those flat-tops lie? The river comes out the mountains
there, and comes a-whooping. We followed it up, till the valley got
narrower and narrower; and right soon the river was nothing but a brook
in width, boiling out something tremendous from betwixt cliffs half
a mile high, leaving no space for man or beast. Nothing gets through
there, except the water. We’re thinking the trail must cross the river
this side the gap, and turn off north’ard to round it.”[E]
[E] They had met near where present Canyon City, Colorado, is located,
on the Upper Arkansas River at the mouth of the famous Grand Canyon of
the Arkansas. The gap between the cliffs was the Royal Gorge, in the
Canyon.
“Yes, it doesn’t tackle that gap, anyhow,” the men all declared.
“Suppose we might as well ford at a good spot, an’ scout about a bit,”
proffered John Sparks.
So ford they all did, wading and splashing through, and slipping on
the rounded stones of the bottom. The trail was found indeed, farther
up, on the north side, where it left the river and bore northwestward
through a dry valley or bottom, as if seeking a pass.
“Now, whether to call this the trail o’ the Spaniards, ag’in, or
an Injun trail, I dunno,” mused John Sparks, as they all grouped,
examining.
“It’s a hoss trail, plain enough,” uttered Bill Gordon.
“’Tis hard to read, that’s a fact,” Sergeant Meek said. “But it leads
somewheres, and like as not to the Red River that the cap’n’s looking
for, in Comanche country. Anyhow, we’ve done all we can, for to-day;
and it’s time we went back down and reported.”
“Sure, he’ll have no excuse for takin’ us through betwixt them high
cliffs,” declared Alex Roy. “We’d be drowneded, hosses an’ all. ’Tis a
tough-lookin’ hole, with no end in sight, an’ the rocks covered with
ice.”
“Come on, boys,” bade the sergeant, “or we’ll be late for supper.”
They turned and marched back, down river, to camp. This evening the
lieutenant talked the report over with the doctor. They decided to
proceed up the river, to the dry valley, and follow the trail.
The dry valley, below where the river gushed out of the break in the
cliff barrier, was reached in one day’s march. Camp was made in it
at night-fall. This, according to the doctor, was the evening of the
tenth day of December. The horses were watered with melted snow, and
given one pint of precious corn, each, brought this far from the Osage
and the Republican Pawnee towns. For the camp there was plenty of deer
meat, killed on the way, and one buffalo. It was to be the last big
meal, through some days.
The Spanish trail had been weak, upon entering the valley. The
lieutenant had rather feared that the sign was only that of a small
scouting party. But farther in it had strengthened. Now at the camp it
appeared to be a fairly well-trodden road, leading on northwest and
probably over the next range of hills.
“The road to the Red River――hooray!” cheered Tom Dougherty. “Then down
the Red River we’ll go, out o’ this cruel cowld, an’ belike we’ll be to
Natchitoches an’ the blessed war-rmth o’ Louisiany long before spring.”
XI
SEEKING THE LOST RIVER
“It’s no use to march farther on this line, doctor.”
Doctor Robinson answered promptly.
“I think you’re right, lieutenant. We’re getting nowhere, only deeper
into the mountains. Men and horses are about at the end of their
strength. There seems to be nothing ahead, except more cold, hunger and
blind scrambling.”
“The men are brave fellows,” said the lieutenant. “That human beings,
half fed and near naked, should be called upon to endure such marches
and camps, amidst snow and zero weather, is almost more than can be
expected from even soldiers. Their pay is a pittance, they don’t know
where they’re going, they were not prepared for winter, yet I’ve heard
not a word of complaint. When we return to the United States, the
Government surely will reward them.”
The lieutenant and the doctor, with Stub, were standing upon a high
ridge some distance from camp. A week had passed since they all had
entered the dry valley, to follow the trail north from the Arkansaw,
on the search for the head of the Red River.
But instead of rounding the gap in the cliffs, the trail had led away,
and away, ever northward, into the midst of the snow-caps. Presently,
or after a couple of days, it had come out at the bank of another
river, frozen over, forty paces wide, and flowing, as the lieutenant
discovered, _northeast_!
That was a disappointment and a surprise. He and the doctor plainly
were puzzled. The river was wrong. To be the Red River it should have
flowed southeast. The lieutenant decided that this river must be the
Platte River――or the beginnings of it, for the great Platte River
was known to flow mainly through the plains, far north of the Pawnee
country, and hundreds of miles distant.
The snowy mountains had closed around. They rose high and white
and coldly silent. There appeared to be no way out, except by the
back trail to the Arkansaw again, or by following this new river
down-stream, but where?[F]
[F] If this stream was the South Platte River, as the Lieutenant
thought, then they had entered into the western part of Central
Colorado’s great South Park; very far indeed from any Red River.
The trail was continuing, up along this frozen river that wound through
a series of snowy valleys between steep wooded hills. They all marched
upon it. It evidently was going somewhere, perhaps to a better country,
perhaps still to the head of the Red River and the circuit south for
the lower regions of New Mexico. At least, the Spanish had some goal in
view.
Next, they had come to a large camp, the largest yet, and only a few
weeks old. But it had been an Indian camp. There were the circles where
lodges――many lodges――had stood, the ashes in the center of each, and
sign of fully one thousand horses.
“Utah,” declared Baroney, examining a cast-off moccasin.
Stub agreed. Moccasins differed, and these were Utah moccasins, by the
cut.
“Sure, then we’re not follerin’ the Spanish, or even the Comanches,”
John Sparks groaned, doubled over with rheumatism. The men all were
pretty badly crippled by frost and chilblains and rheumatism, and
their belts were small around their stomachs. “Weren’t ye ever in this
country before, boy? The Utahs had ye, once, you say.”
Stub did not know.
“No remember. Big country, John. Mebbe here, mebbe somewhere.”
The lieutenant and the doctor had asked him the same question; but he
was as puzzled as they. He might have been hereabouts in summer; it
was very different in winter. His head hurt, too. So he could not help
them.
From the old camp, which seemed to have been a hunting camp, a regular
village, and extended six miles long and two miles wide, covering the
valley bottom, a trail led out, up stream again. In killing two buffalo
(the first fresh meat since leaving the Arkansaw) another gun had
burst――the third in the march. Its muzzle had got stopped with snow,
and its barrel was very brittle from the frost.
John Sparks cut the burst end off, so that the gun might be used. Hugh
Menaugh had no gun at all, and was marching with the lieutenant’s sword
and pistols.
The trail westward was not made by the Spanish. The Spanish trail (if
there had been any Spanish trail) was swallowed up, in the big camp.
But the trail out was better than none at all. It led through still
more old camping places, where there were empty corn-cribs. There were
no old cornfields, though, and this set the men to wondering whether
these Indians might not have got corn from the Spaniards, after all.
Then, on a sudden, the trail quit. It left them stranded, amidst the
mountains. That had occurred this morning. The lieutenant had sent out
searching parties. He then had taken the doctor and Stub, and climbed
to the top of the high ridge, to spy out the country lying around.
“The men should be rewarded the same as the Lewis and Clark men will be
rewarded――with money and land,” now the doctor said.
“A more heroic little band never wore the United States uniform,” the
lieutenant declared.
The doctor laughed.
“They’re not wearing that, these days, lieutenant. No one would take
you and them for soldiers.”
Very true. About the last trace of the blue uniforms had vanished.
Only the lieutenant still had blue trousers, of thin cloth, for
wearing on the march. His chief’s uniform, of bright shoulder-pieces
and shining buttons, he kept in a trunk, until he should meet the
Spaniards or the Comanches. From his red-lined cloak he had cut a cap,
and sewed fox-skin to it, for the inside; the rest of the cloak had
gone into socks and mittens, for himself and Stub. On his feet were
buffalo-hide moccasins, on his body a capote or blanket-coat; and up to
his knees his legs were wrapped in deer-hide. He looked like a chief,
nevertheless.
All this was little enough, for day and night wear in cold and storm.
The doctor had less. To be sure, he had made himself a fur cap, of
rabbit-skin, and a deer-hide coat and mittens――but buckskin, without
much under it, is cold stuff, as everybody knows. His trousers were
torn so that they showed his own skin. His feet were clad in socks cut
from a piece of blanket, and in the hide moccasins which did not fit
and had to be tied on with thongs.
The men, and Stub, had been put to all kinds of shifts. Some wore
coats cut, like the doctor’s socks, from the gray, threadbare army
blankets――and socks to match. Some wore coats of leather――poorly
tanned hides that they had saved. Some wore even leather trousers like
leggins. All wore buffalo hide moccasins, but not a one had a hat
or cap. Their long hair protected their heads, and their faces were
covered with shaggy, bristling beards――except Tom Dougherty, whose
beard was only a stubble in patches. The other men poked a great deal
of fun at young Tom.
As for Stub, his beautiful robe had long ago been turned into moccasins
and leggins; and he tried to be comfortable in these, and a shirt from
a left-over piece of John Sparks’ gray blanket, and socks and mittens
from the lieutenant’s red-lined cloak. He did not need a cap.
Of course, the blankets and hides that had been used were needed for
coverings, at night; but in such cold weather it was almost impossible
to strip other hides and dress them. They were like boards, especially
the buffalo hides. And deer were scarce.
From the high ridge where he and the lieutenant and the doctor stood
the view was wide and wonderful, although not cheering. Mountains,
mountains, mountains, their sides and tips shining white with snow,
their bases, where seen, dark with wooded hills, the pine branches
heavily laden by winter.
Far in the east and the southeast the mountains seemed to form a line
with every gap stopped.
“Isn’t that our Grand Peak, away yonder?” asked the doctor, pointing.
“If so, I judge it’s a hundred miles, as the bird flies.”
“And unreachable from here, except by a bird, sir. We’re shut off from
it, completely. Besides, our road does not lie in that direction.
Our duty as explorers demand that we do not give up so easily.” And
the lieutenant turned his glasses, so as to sweep the north and the
northwest.
On the north were lofty hills, pine covered, breaking the nearer view;
and snow mountains grouped behind them. The frozen river, marked by
willows, stretched onward, in crooked bed, through the valley, now
broad, now narrowed, into the northwest, soon to be closed upon by the
hills and mountains there.
In all the great expanse nothing moved; even the other exploring
parties were out of sight. It was a dead country.
The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders.
“Not very promising, eh?” the doctor queried anxiously.
“It does not promise success. Our course up this river should be
abandoned. We are constantly making farther and farther northward,
separated from the Red River by the mountains; game is getting less,
the trail is unreliable, and we shall depend upon it no longer.”
He gazed southward. The hills rose to mountains here also. He used his
spy-glass intently. He handed it to the doctor.
“You’ll see a great white mountain range, appearing through a gap
almost directly south.”
“Yes, sir. A thundering way off.”
“It seems to be the end of a long chain extending westward from it.
That chain, I believe, is the divide draining on this side into the
Platte, on the other side into the Red River. We’re on the wrong side.
We should march southwest, to cross the nearer portion of the chain,
and eventually come out upon the head of the Red River. At all events,
we’ll try it, while we can. But our march through here has not been
wasted, for our Country. We can lay down on our map the sources of the
Platte, which no one has supposed to be located at such a distance
from the plains.”
They all took another look, scanning the region south and southwest.
With his own eyes Stub might descry the landmark of the Great White
Mountains. The air was very clear, the sun rested just right, and
through the gap there the tops of the mountains, sharp cut and
triangular, stood out plainly amidst the other, lesser peaks. That
called for a long, long journey.
They went back to camp. The other parties came in, and reported nothing
but an old Indian camp, farther up. They had seen no game.
“An’ what nixt, then, I wonder?” Pat Smith remarked, at the fire. “Do
we kape goin’, wid no end. Sure, the Red River can’t lay hereabouts.
We’ll be nearer comin’ to Canady.”
“No keep going,” Stub proudly announced. “The cap’n say turn ’round,
for south. Big ridge there; big white mountains; Red River other side.”
“South’ard? Hooray! That’s a good word. It puts heart into us; hey,
lads? We’ll be gettin’ out o’ this trap where even the Injuns don’t
dare bide in winter, an’ we’ll be findin’ the Red River, after all.”
Stub’s news cheered the men greatly. It took only a little to encourage
them.
XII
IS IT FOUND AT LAST?
“The Red River, men! Three cheers! We think we’ve found it at last!”
It was the evening of the second day’s march into the southwest. The
doctor and the lieutenant had gone out from camp, to survey about, as
usual. The first line of mountains had been crossed and already every
eye was eager and every heart was keen for the traces of the shifty Red
River.
Matters looked promising, too. Noon camp to-day had been made at a
little spring, the unfrozen waters of which flowed trickling and formed
a small stream wending southeast for the bottom of the valley.
“The beginnings of the Red River――do you reckon it might be the
beginnings of the Red River, cap’n?” the men queried.
But the lieutenant smiled and shook his head.
“I wouldn’t dare say so, lads, and disappoint you. We may be a long way
yet from the real Red River.”
Still, some of the men did not believe him, until they had left the
valley and the spring behind, and in a narrow pass of the next ridge
had come upon another spring and another stream, larger. Among so many
springs and streams, who might tell which was the source of the Red
River?
They followed the stream part way through the pass, and encamped
there in a snowstorm. The snow, sifting thickly, shut off the view
before; it was glum weather for a hungry camp; the men crouched close,
snow-covered, around the fire, or moved hobbling, at their various
jobs; the gaunt, sore-backed horses cropped desperately, pawing into
the snow, or hunched, coughing and groaning, in the scant shelter of
the low cedars and spruces.
The horses of the lieutenant and the doctor, and Stub’s yellow pony,
had been turned into pack animals, to lessen the loads of the other
animals. Everybody was marching on foot.
“Did you say that the cap’n an’ the doctor thought likely we’d have to
go cl’ar back south’ard, fur as the Great White Mountains yonder, so’s
to strike the river?” John Sparks asked, of Stub.
“Mebbe there, mebbe sooner,” Stub nodded.
“If we ketch ’em, I hope he won’t be axin’ us to climb ’em,” spoke John
Brown.
“Got to ketch ’em, first,” laughed somebody.
“We might as well be chasing a mountain as a river,” said Terry Miller.
“Oui,” agreed Baroney. “Ma foi, the mountains are there, in sight; but
the river――it’s nowhere.”
“Never mind, never mind, lads,” Sergeant Meek put in. “Not a man of us
works as hard as him and the doctor; they’re always breaking the trail,
and they’re always out whilst we’re resting a bit. Look at ’em now,
scouting in the snow without a bite to eat. Sure, we ought to be proud
to keep a stiff upper lip and follow ’em as fur as they’ll go, whether
that’s to Canady or Mexico or the Pacific Ocean. Ain’t we soldiers?”
“We’ll follow. You bet we will,” the men chorused. “There’s no harm
meant in our talk, but we got to talk about somethin’ besides our feet
an’ our bellies.”
Now here came the lieutenant and the doctor――trudging fast, panting,
snowy, their beards plastered white, but their thin faces lighted with
smiles. The doctor gleefully flourished his fur cap, and hailed them.
“The Red River, men! Three cheers! We think we’ve found it at last!”
“Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!” The steep sides of the narrow pass echoed,
and the miserable horses half pricked their ears, dumbly questioning.
The two came directly to the fire. They were out of breath. The circle
respectfully opened for them.
“Did we hear right? Is it true, then, sir? Ye found the Red River?”
eagerly inquired Sergeant Meek, of the lieutenant.
“Yes, sergeant.” And the lieutenant beat his red cap and stamped, to
dislodge some of his snow. “That is, the signs are the most hopeful
for many a day, and we all have good reason to be inspired of success.
Listen, men. The facts are these: Doctor Robinson and I advanced about
four miles, out of this defile and into a prairie that lies beyond.
There we discovered a fine stream, with all the characteristics of a
river. It is some twenty-five yards wide, very swift, in a clearly
marked rocky channel, and the general direction of its flow is
southeast.”
“Hooray!”
“The creek we are now encamped beside evidently joins it. This is all
I have to say at present. To-morrow, or as soon as marching conditions
warrant, we will proceed, examine the ground more thoroughly, and
demonstrate whether or not we may consider ourselves actually at the
source of the Red River.”
“News like that takes the chill off the air,” laughed Freegift Stout,
when the lieutenant and the doctor had gone into their tent, for a
rubdown.
“B’gorry, we been tellin’ ’em that the Red River was surely
hereabouts,” asserted Tom Dougherty. “Wan spring, an’ then another, an’
then a crick, an’ then the river itself――an’ nixt, out o’ the mountains
we’ll be an’ wid iv’ry mile gettin’ closer to war-rmth an’ people.”
“What do you want o’ people?” Corporal Jerry demanded. “They may be the
Spanish, or the Pawnees again, or worse.”
“Come wan, come all,” Tom retorted. “Sure, I wouldn’t object to a bit
of a fight, for a change, man to man. But fightin’ these mountains is
up-hill work.” And he laughed at his joke.
“Well, I hope with all my heart the cap’n’s struck the right trail,”
said Sergeant Meek. “And he’s pretty certain, or he wouldn’t have
said so much. He’s no man to make a brag, as you know. For the first
time since we entered the mountains he’s looking sort o’ content. He
deserves a turn o’ luck. ’Tis always of his country he’s thinking, and
of us, and never of himself; and though in matter of muscle he’s the
smallest man amongst us, he picks the hardest jobs.”
In the morning the snow was falling faster than ever. They all were
anxious to reach the river, but the pass was so clogged with drifts
and their horses were so weak that the march took them only out to the
edge of the bottom-land.
It was the fifth day without sight of game. The lieutenant ordered a
hunt, before dark; but not even a rabbit was found. There was nothing
but snow, snow, snow.
“My belt’s twice around me already, an’ is startin’ on the third lap,”
declared Alex Roy.
However, the horses were in luck, at last――and they needed it. John
Sparks and Tom Dougherty reported a fine big patch of long grass down
near the river. In the morning the lieutenant sent Baroney and Stub,
with the wretched animals, to set them to grazing and herd them――and a
long cold task this proved to be.
Still, as Baroney said, as he and Stub trudged about or squatted with
their backs to the squalls:
“If we cannot eat, ourselves, it is a great pleasure to watch the
horses eat; hein?”
Late in the afternoon Corporal Jerry Jackson came down.
“You’re to fetch the horses in with you, at dusk,” he said. “Never a
trace of game, all day, so we’ll pull out in the mornin’.”
“Down the Red River, mebbe, Jerry?” Stub asked.
“I dunno, but somewhere. The cap’n knows――an’ he knows we’re on short
rations of only a few mouthfuls to a man.”
The doctor and Baroney were to start out early, down river, hunting.
The lieutenant and two or three men were to explore up stream and see
where the river began, if they could. The rest of the men were to march
down river with the baggage, until they killed enough game so that they
might camp and wait.
“Miller and Mountjoy, ’tis you with the cap’n,” ordered Sergeant Meek.
“I go, too, Bill?” pleaded Stub.
“Sure, that’s for him to say. I’ve only my orders, lad,” Sergeant Bill
answered.
So Stub appealed to Lieutenant Pike himself.
“I go with you, please?”
But the lieutenant gravely shook his head.
“Not this time, my boy. You’d best go down river with the others, where
there’s more chance of finding game. Up stream it’s a rough country,
and the three of us are likely to be hard put for meat. We’ll only
explore for a day or two; you stay with the party.”
As anybody might have foretold, the lieutenant again had taken the
heaviest work.
“I go with the doctor, then, please,” Stub proposed. “Down river.”
“He and Baroney will be hunting. You have no weapon. But you can do
your duty like a soldier by tending the horses.”
Stub mournfully thought upon his bow, broken several days ago. Hugh
Menaugh spoke up, saluting.
“Beggin’ your pardon, cap’n――he’s a plucky lad an’ if you say for him
to go wid the doctor he can have one o’ the pistols you loaned to me.
Belike he’ll fare as well wid the doctor as wid us, an’ mebbe bring him
luck. An’ we’ve all been boys, ourselves, oneasy for doin’ things.”