Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/268

 "I have good news," he announced. "We have won success. With the glass I can see from those sand-hills a larger river coursing from northwest to southeast through the valley beyond. There can be no doubt that it is the Red River."

They cheered and cheered, and ate with fine appetites. It was a happy night. As Sergeant Meek said:

"Once there—and 'twon't be long—we can send back for Menaugh, and poor Sparks and Dougherty, and Baroney and Smith and the hosses; and we'll all be together again, ready for the march home."

The sand-hills were five miles wide, and looked to be about fifteen miles long. The river came down obliquely through the valley—which was indeed a broad bottom of prairie-land; so they cut across at an angle, and not until the second evening, after a day's march of twenty-four miles, did they reach the bank of the river itself, January 30.

It certainly was the Red River, issuing from the western mountains, and here turning more southwardly, in the middle of the valley.

The valley was a wonderland. It lay flat, with little snow, full fifty miles wide and in length almost farther than eye might say. The mountains in the west were bald, snowy and grim. The Great White Mountains on the east appeared to end opposite in a