empt
must now wait until we had penetrated to the headwaters of the Arkansas;
until we had rounded the sources of the Red River,--if in truth we were
ever to find the unknown upper reaches of that stream; until we had
spent weeks, and it might be months, wandering about the snowy
wildernesses of these vast Western mountains.

It was a sickening prospect for my eager love to contemplate. Yet I
needed only the quiet words of my friend to realize what I already knew
in my heart. It was true what he said. I could be of service to my
comrades. There was my duty to them, if not my patriotism, to bind me to
their company. I could not have left them at the time, even though the
way to Santa Fe and on to Chihuahua had been an open highway before my
feet, and the season midspring.

CHAPTER XVII

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: "_Voila! Les
sauvages!_"

A moment later we also caught sight