Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/95

 he would turn west, in time, and aim for the unknown mountains, many days' journey—although what he expected to find there, nobody might say.

It was the home of the Utahs, who warred upon plains people and were friendly to only the Spanish.

He was a bold man, this young Chief Pike.

The march southward continued all day, pursuing the trail, until when the sun was getting low and the shadows long a place was reached where the Spanish had camped.

Chief Pike examined the signs. The Spanish of Chief Melgares had camped in a circle. There were fifty-nine burnt spots, from campfires. Allowing six warriors to each fire, that counted up over three hundred and fifty. The grasses had been eaten off by the horses.

Chief Pike led his eighteen warriors on a little distance, and ordered camp for the night beside a fork of the river of the Kansas. Scar Head was well treated; the American medicine man or "doctor" eyed him a great deal, but did him no harm; the warrior Sparks grinned at him, and beckoned to him, but he did not go. It was a cheerful camp, with the men singing and joking in their strange language.

He ate at the fire of the two chiefs and the medicine-man. They and Baroney the interpreter talked