soldiers, and our duty to our orders and our Flag demands that we do
not admit defeat. The thought of defeat is unworthy of brave men. It
is far better to die with honor, in the knowledge that we have done
our utmost, than to live as cowards and weaklings. Fortune has been
trying us out, but she will not find us lacking. We have explored to
the north, and we know that the Red River does not lie there. That much
has been accomplished, and not in vain, for we have made important
discoveries and greatly extended the Government’s knowledge of the
sources of the Platte and the Arkansaw Rivers. It will be impossible
to travel onward with the horses. We have lost a number of them, and
the remainder are unfit. So I propose to stay here a few days, in order
to erect a block-house and gather meat. Then I shall leave the horses,
and the useless baggage, with two men in charge; and with the rest of
you shall strike southward to cross the next divide, in the vicinity of
the Great White Mountains, where, I am positive, we shall emerge upon
the head streams of the Red River. We have demonstrated the fact that
the Red River can lie only in that direction. From there we will send
back for the horses, which by that time will be recovered; and we will
descend along the river to the civilization of our own people and the
just reward, I trust, of a Country appreciative of your efforts.”
Sergeant Meek faced the men and flourished his lean arm.
“Three cheers for the cap’n and the Red River, boys! Hooray! Hooray!
Hooray!”
They all spent the next four days in building the block-house with
logs, and in hunting. A good pasture was found, for the wretched
horses. John Sparks made a new stock for the lieutenant’s broken gun.
Baroney and Pat Smith were to stay here. Although a great deal of
the baggage, including the lieutenant’s own trunk with his “chief’s”
uniform, was left also, what with the ammunition and axes and spades,
and the presents in case the Comanches or other Indians should be met,
and the meat, the lieutenant and the doctor and the eleven men carried
each seventy pounds, weighed out equally, and Stub himself had a pack.
Followed by a good-luck cheer from Baroney and Pat, they marched out
from the block-house on the morning of January 14, southward bound
across the Arkansaw, to find the Red River down in the region of the
Great White Mountains.
The first day they marched thirteen miles; the doctor killed a deer.
The second day they marched nineteen miles, up along a stream that
opened a way for them to the mountains; the lieutenant and the doctor
and John Sparks each killed a deer. On the third day they marched up
the same stream, eighteen miles, in a snowstorm; and nobody killed
anything. So to-night they pretty well finished their meat. Travelling
afoot in winter was hungry work, and they could carry only a little at
a time.
On the fourth day they marched twenty-eight miles――and a bad day it
proved to be. The Great White Mountains had been getting nearer,
at this end――their upper end. They formed a tremendous snowy chain
stretching northwest and southeast. The stream came down from them,
and they were about to bar the trail. Upon the east there were lesser
mountains. But no Red River flowed in this broad trough between the two
ranges; its streams fed the Arkansaw River; therefore the Red River
must lie upon the farther, or western side, of the Great White range.[H]
[H] These Great White Mountains of Lieutenant Pike are the Sangre de
Cristo Range of Southern Colorado. They extend from the Arkansas River
above the Grand Canyon clear into New Mexico, and are a noble snowy
range indeed. The early Spanish explorers from the south named them
Sangre de Cristo, or Blood of Christ, because when first sighted they
were bathed red in the reflection from a New Mexico sunset. And this
frequently is their sunset coloring today. From the block-house beyond
present Cañon City north of the Arkansas River the Pike men had marched
south across the river, and probably had followed up Grape Creek, which
descends from the east slope of the Sangre de Cristo――the Great White
Mountains.
The mountains seemed to rise from a bare prairie which grew no wood.
The lieutenant had left the stream, so as to aim more directly for a
low place in the range; but he was not to cross, to-day. The range was
farther than it looked to be. The sun set――and here they were, in the
cold open, without wood or water either, or a bite to eat.
“There’s timber at the base of those first slopes,” he said. “We’ll
have to push on, men, until we reach it. The night will be too cold for
existing with no fires.”
Suddenly they were barred by the creek, and needs must ford it through
ice that broke under their moccasins. It was long after dark, and
was stinging cold, when they arrived at the trees. The men stumbled
wearily; Stub could not feel his feet at all. Nobody had complained,
though――but when the fires had been built and they all started to thaw
themselves out, the doctor found that nine pairs of feet had been
frozen, among the men, with Stub’s pair to be included.
He, and the lieutenant, Sergeant Meek and Terry Miller were the only
ones to have escaped! John Sparks and young Tom Dougherty were the
worst off. Their feet were solid white to their ankles. Hugh Menaugh
and Jake Carter were badly off, too. The doctor did his best――everybody
rubbed hard with snow, and several groaned from the pain; but there
was nothing to eat and the thermometer dropped to more than eighteen
degrees below zero or freezing.
With cold, hunger and aching feet it was a hard night. The lieutenant
sent Sergeant Meek and Terry out early in the morning, to hunt in one
direction; he and the doctor made ready to hunt in another.
“Do the best you can, lads,” they encouraged, as they set forth. “We’ve
all been in tight places before, and have come out safely. Wait now in
patience, and you shall have the first meat that’s killed.”
It was another long day: a cold, bleak day for this open camp on the
edge of the snow-laden pines and cedars, with the Great White Mountains
overlooking, on the one hand, as far as eye might see, and the wide
prairie bottoms stretching lone and lifeless on the other hand.
Stub’s feet were swollen, puffy and tender, but he could walk. He and
Corporal Jerry Jackson and Alex Roy managed to keep the fires going.
John Sparks and Tom Dougherty lay suffering until the sweat stood on
their foreheads. Their feet seemed to be turning black, and were alive
with sharp pains.
“Sure, we’re like never to walk ag’in, Tom,” John moaned. “Our
country’ll owe us each a pair o’ feet.”
“I know that, John. But what’ll we do wid those we have? That’s what’s
botherin’ me. ’Tis cruel hard.”
“’Tis harder on you than on me, lad,” John declared. “For you’re young.
An’ still, I’d like to do a bit more marchin’, myself.”
They heard never a sound from the hunters, all day. At dark the
sergeant and Terry Miller came in, completely tuckered. They had not
fired a shot; had seen no game, nor seen the lieutenant and the doctor,
either.
“We’ll have to pull our belts in another notch, boys,” quoth the
sergeant. “And trust to them other two. Had they found meat, they’d be
in. If they don’t come to-night, they’ll come to-morrow. ’Tis tough for
you, here by the fire; but it’s tougher on them, out yonder somewheres
in the cold, with their hearts aching at the thought of us waiting and
depending on ’em. Jest the same, I’d rather be any one of us, in our
moccasins as we are, than Henry Kennerman serving time in his boots.”
Henry Kennerman was a soldier who had deserted on the way to the Osage
towns.
The next day was the fourth without food. It passed slowly. The feet of
some of the men, like those of Stub, were much better; but John Sparks
and young Tom could not stand, and Hugh Menaugh and Jake Carter could
not walk.
Toward evening the sergeant grew very uneasy; alarm settled over them
all. No tidings of any kind had arrived from the lieutenant and Doctor
Robinson.
“We’ll wait, the night,” finally said Sergeant Meek. “In the morning
’twill be up to us, for if we sit here longer we’ll be too weak to
move. We’ll divide up, those of us who can walk. A part’ll have to
search for them two men, for maybe they’re needing help worse’n we
are, and ’tis the duty of a soldier never to abandon his officers.
The rest’ll look for meat again. And we’ll none of us come in till we
fetch either news or meat. Shame on us if we can’t turn to and help our
officers and ourselves.”
“You’re right. There’s nobody can blame the cap’n an’ the doctor.
They’ve never spared themselves. We’ll all do our best, sergeant.”
“Only lend me a pair o’ fate, any wan o’ yez whose heart’s too heavy
for ’em, an’ I’ll look for the cap’n meself,” appealed Tom Dougherty.
They kept up the fires and tried to sleep. The black, cold night
deepened; overhead the steely stars spanned from prairie to dark
slopes. The Great Bear of the sky, which contained the Pointers that
told the time, drifted across, ranging on his nightly trail.
Suddenly, at midnight, they heard a faint, breathless “Whoo-ee!” And
while they listened, another.
“’Tis the cap’n and the doctor!” the sergeant exclaimed. “Hooray! Give
’em a yell, now, all together. Build up the fires.”
They yelled. They were answered, through the darkness――and presently
through the same darkness the lieutenant――and the doctor――came
staggering in, bending low, to the fire-light.
Meat!
“Here you are, my lads!” the lieutenant panted. He dropped the load
from his back, swayed, sank to his knees, and the sergeant sprang to
catch him.
“We’re all right, sir. We knew you’d be coming. You’re a welcome sight,
sir, meat or no meat. We were getting anxious about you and the doctor,
sir.”
“I’ll tend to him, sergeant,” gasped the doctor. “You be helping the
men with the meat. Don’t let ’em over-eat. There’s more, back where we
killed.”
The lieutenant had almost fainted. It was several minutes before he
could speak again. He and the doctor had had a terrible two days. The
doctor said that they had wounded a buffalo with three balls, the first
evening, but it had made off. All that night they had sat up, among
some rocks, nearly freezing to death while they waited for morning.
Then they had sighted a herd of buffalo, at daybreak, and had crawled
a mile through the snow――had shot eight times, wounded three, and the
whole herd had escaped.
That second day they had tramped until the lieutenant was about spent
with hunger and lack of rest. Matters had looked very bad. But they
both decided that they would rather die looking for game, than return
and disappoint the men. Just at dusk, when they were aiming for a point
of timber, there to spend another night, they saw a third herd of
buffalo. The lieutenant managed to run and hide behind a cedar. When
the buffalo were about to pass, he shot, and this time crippled one.
The doctor ran, and with three more shots they killed the buffalo.
Hurrah!
Then they butchered it, without stopping to eat; and carrying as much
as they could they had traveled for six hours, bringing the meat to the
camp.
“It’s a story hard to beat,” said Sergeant Meek, simply. “You may not
be one of the army, yourself, sir; but as officer and man we’re proud
to follow you――you and the cap’n, sir.”
“The lieutenant and I wondered what you men were thinking, when we
didn’t return,” the doctor proffered. “You had a right to expect us
sooner? Did you plan to march on and try to save your lives?”
“No, sir; not exactly that,” replied rugged Sergeant Meek. “We knew you
hadn’t forgotten us, and there was no complaining. Seemed like we’d
best search for you, and the same time find meat if we could; and that
we’d ha’ done, the first thing in the morning, sir.”
“Your plan, and the way with which you received us, do you all credit
before the world,” spoke the lieutenant, who overheard. “As your
comrades we thank you, men; and as your officer I am proud of you. My
reports to General Wilkinson and the Secretary of War shall not omit
the devotion to duty that has characterized your whole march.”
XVI
BLOCKED BY THE GREAT WHITE MOUNTAINS
John Sparks and Tom Dougherty were to be left behind. That was the word.
“What?”
“Yes. The doctor says not a step shall they march, if they would save
their feet; an’ poor Tom, he’s like to lose his, anyhow. An’ since they
can’t march, no more can we carry ’em across the mountains without
hosses. So here they stay till we can send an’ get ’em.”
All the buffalo meat had been brought in. The lieutenant was preparing
to march on, for the Red River. From the camp he had explored farther
westward, to the very foot of the mountains, seeking a trail over; but
the snow was four and five feet deep even there, the whole country
above was white, and he gave the trail up.
“We’ll have to march on south along this side, until we find a better
place.”
Now they made ready. John Sparks and Tom were fixed as comfortably as
possible, with guns and ammunition, a lean-to for shelter, and the
best buffalo-robes, and wood and meat. Their packs, and the packs of
Hugh Menaugh and Jake Carter (who barely could hobble, using their
muskets as crutches) were hidden under trees.
Sturdy red-haired John and young Tom felt badly. So did everybody. The
lieutenant’s voice broke, as he said:
“We aren’t deserting you, my lads. Never think of that. As surely as we
live we will send for you, the very first thing, as soon as we locate
a desirable camping spot, to which to bring down the horses. That will
not be long; we have only to cross these mountains. Rather than desert
you, if I should be the last man alive in the party I would return,
myself, and die with you. Whatever happens, meet it like soldiers,
bearing in mind that you are suffering for your Country. It is far
preferable to perish thus, in the wilderness, in discharge of duty,
rather than to forfeit honor by evading hardships and toil like the
disloyal Kennerman.”
“Oh, sir! We’ll act the man, sir,” they replied. “We’ll keep a stiff
upper lip, an’ be waitin’ for the hosses to come get us.”
The lieutenant shook hands with them; the doctor shook hands with them.
“Now take care of those feet,” he urged.
Everybody shook hands with them.
“Good-by, lads.”
“Good-by to yez. God send yez safe to the Red River, an’ we’ll join yez
there, all bound home together.”
“For’d, march!” barked the lieutenant. His voice was husky. There were
tears freezing on his cheeks.
“For’d, men,” rasped old Sergeant Meek, and blew his nose violently.
A number of the other men were sniffling and blowing, and Stub choked
as he blindly trudged. Bluff Hugh Menaugh growled gently to himself,
while he and Jake hobbled.
As long as they could see the little camp and the two figures sitting
they occasionally turned and waved; and John and Tom waved answer.
“Well, we did our best for ’em,” sighed Corporal Jerry. “We took only
one meal o’ meat. They have the rest. ’Twill get ’em through, like as
not.”
“Yes. Once across these mountains, to the Red River, and we’ll send for
them and the hosses.”
This evening the one meal of meat was eaten. A little snow fell. In
the morning the lieutenant ordered Sergeant Meek to take the party on,
while he and the doctor hunted. The day was dark and lowering. Then the
storm set in again, snowing furiously. By noon the snow was knee high;
they could not see ten feet around; Hugh and Jake were unable to move
farther; the lieutenant and the doctor were still out――perhaps lost,
like themselves.
“’Tis no use, men. We’ll make for the nearest timber and camp there,”
ordered Sergeant Meek.
That was another miserably cold, hungry day, and a worse night.
“How flesh and blood may be expected to stand more of this, I don’t
know,” uttered John Brown.
“And it’s not for you to ask,” the sergeant sternly rebuked. “If you’re
so weak-hearted as to think them thoughts, keep ’em to yourself. Even
the lad Stub――a mere boy that he is――speaks no such words. Shame on
you――you a soldier!”
John Brown muttered, but said no more.
“Heaven help the cap’n an’ the doctor, again,” spoke Corporal Jerry,
as they all huddled about their fire, and the wind howled and the snow
hissed, and the drifts piled higher against their little bulwark of
packs. “An’ if they don’t find us an’ we don’t find them, ’twill go
hard with Sparks and Dougherty, too.”
“If the storm clears, we’ll march on in the morning,” said Sergeant
Meek. “We’ve had orders to meet ’em, on a piece yet, and that’s our
duty.”
The morning dawned gray and white, but the storm had ceased. They shook
off the snow, reshouldered their packs, and guns in hand stiffly
started. The snow was thigh high; the Great White Mountains looming
in a long front without end on their right were whiter than ever; the
bottoms and the more distant mountains on their left were white. It was
snow, snow, snow, everywhere; the very dead of winter.
Now (Good!) here came the lieutenant and the doctor, ploughing down
a slope, their packs on their backs, but nothing else. Snowy and
breathing hard, they arrived. The men, plodding, had seen; and having
given up hope plodded on, saying not a word. Only Sergeant Meek
greeted, saluting as best he might:
“All well, cap’n. Good morning to you, sirs.”
“No luck this time, sergeant,” wheezed the lieutenant, cheerily, but
with face pinched and set. “We missed you, and spent the night together
in the snow.”
“Yes, sir. We couldn’t see, for the storm, sir, and had to camp in the
nearest shelter.”
“You did right, sergeant. The storm was so thick that I found even the
compass of little help. The doctor and I became separated and were
fearful that we had lost each other as well as the party. Halt the men.”
“Squad, halt,” rasped the sergeant.
The men waited, panting and coughing.
“It’s evident there are no buffalo down in the open, lads,” spoke the
lieutenant. “The doctor and I have sighted never a one nor any sign of
one. The storm has driven them back and higher, into the timber. We’ll
make in the same direction, and be crossing the mountains while seeking
meat.”
He and the doctor led off, heading westward, to climb the Great White
Mountains. The route commenced to get more rolling――up and down, up
and down, over the rounded foothills concealed by the snow. ’Twas
leg-wearying, breath-taking work. The snow grew deeper. In the hollows
it had gathered shoulders high; upon the slopes it was waist high. The
little column was straggling. Stub, the smallest member, trying to
tread in the broken trail, was at times almost buried.
In an hour they all had covered a pitiful distance; to be sure, the
prairie was somewhat below, but the real mountains seemed far above,
and the silent timber still awaited, in a broad belt.
The lieutenant and the doctor had halted. They turned and began to
plough back. The little column, steaming with the vapor from lungs and
bodies, drew nearer to them.
“The snow is too deep, here, lads,” the lieutenant called, as he and
the doctor passed in front of the file. His voice was tired; anybody
might have thought him discouraged――and little wonder. “We’ll have to
keep lower down, and try elsewhere.”
“To the famine country of the open bottoms,” he said. Were they never
to get across these Great White Mountains, which faced them unending?
Were they to die in the snow, just for the sake of hunting the Red
River? John Brown, near the head of the column, broke restraint again
and exclaimed roundly:
“I say, it’s more than flesh an’ blood can bear, to march three days
with not a mouthful of food, through snow three feet deep, an’ carry
loads only fit for hosses!”
Everybody heard. Sergeant Meek turned on him angrily. Had the
lieutenant heard also? No? Yes! He had paused for an instant, as if to
reply; then without another sign he had proceeded.
“You’ll be called to answer for this, Brown,” warned the sergeant.
John muttered to himself, and a silence fell upon the file. Stooped and
unsteady under their own loads, the lieutenant and the doctor doggedly
continued, breaking the trail on course obliquing for the lower
country. The others followed, breathing hard.
The lieutenant and the doctor had struck down a shallow draw. Issuing
from the end of it, they were out of sight. When the head of the
column arrived at the same spot, there were only the two packs, and a
message scrawled with a ramrod on the snow. Sergeant Meek read.
“We see buffalo. Camp in nearest timber and wait. Z. M. P.”
Every eye sprang to search the landscape. There! Far down, upon the
prairie! Black dots――slowly moving across! Buffalo! And where were the
hunters? Their tracks pointed onward from the two packs. See! They were
running, crouched, down among the billowy swells, as if to head the
animals off. It was a desperate chance.
“The breeze is with us,” Sergeant Meek cried hopefully. “Quick! For
that timber tip, yon, and keep out o’ sight. Trust the cap’n and the
doctor to do their best. Let’s take no risk of spoiling their chance.”
The column hustled, with strength renewed. The tip of timber was about
a mile distant. The buffalo had disappeared behind a knoll of the
prairie; the last seen of the lieutenant and the doctor, they were
hastening――stumbling and falling and lunging again, to reach the same
knoll. The doctor had forged ahead. He was stronger than the lieutenant.
Then the scene was swallowed up by a dip in the trail to the timber.
Next, a dully-sounding gunshot! But only one. The doctor probably had
fired――perhaps at long distance. Had he landed――disabled, or only
wounded, or missed? Nothing could yet be seen. The men, and Stub,
their lungs almost bursting, shambled as fast as possible. Just as
they emerged at the point of timber, other shots boomed: two, close
together. Hooray! That meant business. They paused, puffing, to gaze.
Again hooray! Down near the knoll a black spot blotched the snow. At
one side of it there were other black spots, some still, some moving
in and out. It was the herd, and seemed confused. Look! From the
black spot, off by itself――a dead buffalo, that!――smoke puffs darted
and spread. The buffalo herd surged a little, but did not run. The
lieutenant and the doctor were lying behind the carcass and shooting.
“One, anyway, lads!” cheered Sergeant Meek. “Maybe more. Off with your
packs, now. Roy, Mountjoy, Stout, Brown, you cut wood; the rest of
us’ll be clearing a space. There’ll be meat in camp before long, and
we’ll have fires ready.”
They all worked fast. No one now felt tired. The hunt down below
sounded like a battle. The lieutenant and the doctor were firing again
and again, as rapidly as they might load and aim. Toiling with ax and
spade and hands, the column, making camp, scarcely paused to watch;
but presently the firing ceased――the buffalo herd were lumbering away,
at last, with one, two, three of them gradually dropping behind, to
stagger, waver, and suddenly pitch, dead! Meat, and plenty of it!
The lieutenant and the doctor were busy, butchering the carcass that
had shielded them. They wasted no time. Here they came, loaded well.
The fires were crackling and blazing, in readiness; and when they
panted in, spent, bloody and triumphant, the camp cheered hoarsely.
“Eat, boys,” gasped the lieutenant. “Fortune has favored us. There’s
more meat below. But we’ll eat first.”
Everybody hacked and tore at the red humps, and in a jiffy the strips
from them were being thrust into the fire by ramrods; without waiting
for more than a scorching and a warming through, the men devoured like
wolves. With the meat juice daubing his chin and staining the men’s
beards, Stub thought that never before had he tasted such sweetness. He
forgot his other hungers.
Whew! One by one the men drew back, to chew the last mouthfuls, and
light pipes, contented. The meat all had vanished.
“Send Brown to me, sergeant,” the lieutenant ordered. There was
something _he_ had not forgotten.
John Brown arose and shambled to where the lieutenant and the doctor
were sitting. He looked sheepish and frightened. The lieutenant stood,
to front him; did not acknowledge his salute, but scanned him sternly,
his haggard eyes commencing to blaze bluely.