Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/124

 The doctor medicine-man laughed, and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Good. Let him come, lieutenant."

"He may come," replied the lieutenant. And Stub's heart beat gladly.

Baroney and John Sparks and Tom Dougherty and John Brown and others of his friends were coming, too. Had he been sent away with Lieutenant Wilkinson, in the boat, for the United States, he would have run off at his first chance and followed the Pike trail.

Right after breakfast in the morning camp was broken. It had been a very cold night, with snow, and ice floated thickly down the swollen river. But by help of the Wilkinson boats Lieutenant Pike moved his men and baggage across the river again, to the north side which everybody said was the American side. The men worked hard, to load the boats and swim the horses, in the slush and ice. Then Lieutenant Wilkinson made ready to start.

He took with him, in his two boats, one of the head soldiers, Sergeant Joe Ballenger; the soldiers John Boley, Sam Bradley, Sol Huddleston, and John Wilson; the Osage man and woman who had come this far, and corn and meat for twenty-one days.

Head soldier Sergeant Bill Meek marched the Pike men up-river, but Stub stayed with Lieutenant