Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/172

 "I don't wish 'em frozen feet. We've got enough of such in camp."

"Yes, and one pair too many, speaking for myself," groaned Jake Carter.

This was the fourth day since leaving the stockade, and a bitter cold day, albeit warmer, according to the lieutenant's instrument, than yesterday. The thermometer stood at only three degrees below. freezing; yesterday it had been at seventeen below.

The lieutenant had marched them out of the stockade, in a heavy snowstorm, on the morning after the return from the climb. The route was westward, again, up the south side of the Arkansaw. Just why he was so impatient to go on, snow or no snow, none of the men knew. Maybe he was in hopes of finding the Ietans or Comanches, yet; but Stub himself was quite certain that the Ietans wintered farther south. Or if he wished to discover the head of the Arkansaw and of the Red River, then the men wondered why he didn't build warm quarters, and lay in meat, and make fur clothing, so as to explore safely.

"Sure, sometimes I think that what he's aimin' at is to foller this here Spanish trail cl'ar into New Mexico, an' fetch up, with all of us, at Santy Fe, even as prisoners to them Spanish," John Sparks hazarded. "We can swear we made a mistake,