hardly limped in their gait. Not one of
them had been required to walk a mile since leaving the fort, horses
having been provided them from the first.

It was no less affecting than amusing to see the manner in which,
obedient to orders, they stared at me with an air of stolid indifference
even when I came up to them with their Lieutenant. But the moment he had
explained that all was discovered, they crowded about me with
exclamations of joy. It was truly a happy meeting for us all, despite
the uncertainty of what might befall us in the hands of the tyrannical
Spanish authorities.

As soon as I had sketched my adventures, Pike, in turn, told theirs.

"For several days after you left," he began, "I spent the time in
hunting, reading, and exploring the valley around the fort. But a
fortnight ago, while out with Brown, we fell in with a dragoon and an
Indian of the militia, who, after telling us of your arrival at Santa
Fe, insisted upon following us to the fort. In the morning, after we had
made them a few gifts, they started back to Santa Fe, from which place
they had been sent out to spy upon us."

"True!" I broke in. "Allencaster must have suspected from the first that
my party of hunters was no less than the American expedition. I have
learned that Senor Lisa sent word from St. Louis of the expedition's
plans, to the Spanish authorities in Texas. All the Northern Provinces
have been on the lookout for us for months, and Malgares has told me
that the real purpose of his great expedition was either to capture us
or to turn us back."

"That I have myself learned," replied Pike. "Well, they have us now. May
they have joy of their find! But to return. The same day that the spies
left, Jackson and his party came in with Menaugh. But poor Sparks and
Dougherty, alas! neither had been able to take a dozen steps, and the
others could not bear them through those deep drifts."

"Good God!" I cried. "They left their comrades again, in that terrible
valley, famished, crippled, sick! Had I but gone--!"

"No, John, they are not famished, nor are they sick. Jackson found them
well nourished. The gangrene had not spread. They will recover. You
yourself said they would recover if the disease did not spread in this
time. Jackson restocked them with meat, and within three days after his
return Meek and Miller volunteered for a second rescue-party. As their
orders were to go first for Baroney and Smith and the horses, there can
be