Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/121

 "Lieutenant Wilkinson travels down river by boat. The captain takes men and marches to the Comanches."

"Lieutenant Wilkinson, how far?" Stub asked.

"Very far, to the American forts at the mouth of the river, and to report to the American father."

"Captain Pike, how far?"

Baroney shrugged his shoulders.

"Who knows?"

Stub made up his mind what he was going to do.

Lieutenant Pike moved the camp to the other side of the river, where the best boat-trees grew. The river was rising fast, from the rains, and everybody had to swim and arrived very wet. Rain fell almost all the time, but it was a good camp, with plenty of wood and meat.

While the men under Lieutenant Wilkinson cut down trees Chief Pike and the doctor medicine-man scouted up and down the river, hunting meat and the Spanish trail. There were buffalo and antelope, but there was no Spanish trail.

Lieutenant Pike grew curious about the wish-*ton-wish, or prairie dogs. He found a large town of them, where the rattle-snakes and the tortoise lived, too. He and the doctor shot them, to eat, and they were good—as Stub well knew. It took true