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 who seemed to feel no fears. They appeared to know what they were about.

Chief Pike shouted a command and led out. The second chief repeated the command, and turned in his saddle to see that it was obeyed; then he galloped to the fore. The two chiefs rode first, side by side. Baroney signed, and Scar Head found himself between Baroney and the medicine-man. Four Osages, still—Chief Pretty Bird, two warriors and a woman—followed. The American warriors trudged after, two by two, in a column, with the extra horses bearing packs.

The warriors numbered eighteen. It was a small party, for a great nation, when one remembered that the Spanish had sent several hundred and that the Padoucahs or Ietans (the Comanches) numbered thousands. The Osages of course need not be counted. The Pawnees thought little of Osages—a poor and miserable people.

The Spanish had left a very broad, plain trail. The Americans were following it, although it was an old trail and the Spanish chief had been gone several weeks. It stretched straight southward, toward the Kansas country, and the Padoucah and the Spanish country, beyond. If the young chief Pike followed far enough, in that direction, he would have need of all his medicine to get out again. But perhaps