Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/177

 scarcely more than a boy, himself: a young warrior of twenty years.

Presently they struck a broad horse-trail, pointing up-river.

"We'll see where it goes to," said John Sparks. They followed it as rapidly as they could. The river flowed down shallow and rippling and ice-bordered, among reddish, bare, rounded hills sprinkled with cedar and with snow patches. Far northward they saw, every now and then, the glistening Grand Peak. It was hard to lose this Grand Peak.

About noon they emerged from the long valley of the river into a broadening, with snow peaks shimmering in the distances, and a line of high flat-topped hills crossing the route before.

"Hist! There be Injuns or them Spanish, likely!" Tom warned, pointing ahead.

They halted and peered.

"No. I take it they're some of our own men," said John Mountjoy.

"What do ye say, Stub?" John Sparks queried.

Stub nodded. His eyes were true eyes.

"No Injuns. Our men," he asserted.

So they went on, toward the flat-topped hills, and met the parties of Sergeant Meek and Baroney.

"Hello to you," John Sparks greeted "What luck?"