Even before they caught sight of the burdens we bore, the brave sufferers had hailed our approach with heroic cheerfulness. Now, with every mouthful of frozen meat, our leader recovered from his dizziness, and generous strips of steak sizzling on the green-wood spits, the spirits of all rose even to the pitch of merriment. Desperate as was still our situation, it yet seemed like paradise after the anguish of body and mind through which we had pa.s.sed.

No men, I venture to say, ever bore pain and privation and hardship with more heroic fort.i.tude than was shown by these poor fellows. All but three had been compelled to endure the agony of their frozen feet, in addition to the pangs of starvation, and the sad truth that these injuries went beyond a mere frosting was all too evident in the morning, when, upon examining the men, I found that two of them, at the best, would have to give up their packs and hobble along with the aid of crutches. As for Dougherty and Sparks, both were too disabled to march at all.

CHAPTER XIX

BEYOND THE BARRIER

But I will dwell no more in detail upon our sufferings in that terrible valley of frost and famine. Enough said that, after bringing in the remainder of the meat for Sparks and Dougherty, we left them and struggled onward in search of a pa.s.s. To linger in camp with our disabled comrades would have meant certain death to all. But many among us wept at the parting, for few believed we should ever return.

Indeed, having eaten in one scant meal all the meat we had found heart to take from the injured men, we again suffered a famine, this time of three days' duration. It was then, for the first and only time during all our privations, that one of the men murmured openly. So evident was it that his outcry had been wrung from him by anguish and despair that the Lieutenant, instead of shooting him down in his tracks in accordance with the usual rigor of military discipline, chose to pretend that he had not heard the mutinous words. A few hours later we were the second time saved from starvation by a fortunate kill of buffalo, and it was then, after we had feasted to repletion around a roaring camp-fire, that Pike called the mutineer before him and reproved the repentant man for his conduct.

At this camp we left the greater part of the meat of the four buffaloes killed, in the charge of Hugh Menaugh, one of the two men who, aside from Sparks and Dougherty, had suffered the worst from the frost. This time, however, meat being so abundant, we did not fail to take with us on our onward march enough of provisions to last us for several days.

Though recuperated by two days of feasting,--for we had lingered that length of time with Menaugh,--our first march out of his camp proved one of the very hardest we had yet made. We were by now near the top of a high plateau, where the travelling was even more difficult than in the lower valley; yet we could discover no break in the white barrier, which, despite our high alt.i.tude, still towered up many hundred feet above us.

It was almost nightfall, and Pike and I--as usual in the lead breaking a way through the drifts for the others--were beginning to look about for a favorable camp-site, when, topping a knoll, we found ourselves staring down upon a little stream whose course ran to the westward.

"Look!" I shouted. "A pa.s.s! That brook flows to the mountains--into the mountains!"

"It may twist about again to south and east. We have reached the top of a divide," cautioned Pike.

"No, no! it cannot be!" I cried, wild with delight. "I see a cleft in the mountain side! The sun dazzles our eyes, but look beneath, in the shadow."

"Thank G.o.d!" he sighed. "It is a cleft! It must be that the stream flows through the mountains. If only we can find a way down its bed!"

"We can--we must!" I wheeled about to the weary men. "Hurrah, lads!

Stiffen your knees! We've found our pa.s.s! Another day will see us beyond the mountains!"

The brave fellows answered with a ringing cheer. Drooping heads straightened; tottering steps gave place to firm, eager strides. Buoyed up by renewed hope, we hurried down the hillside and along the stream bank until in the gathering twilight we could see with certainty where the stream wound its way into the mountain cleft. a.s.sured of this all-important fact, we made our bivouac in a grove of pines, and settled down to the happiest night we had known in weeks.

Bright and early in the morning we broke camp and trudged along through the snow, down the bank of the creek. Soon we found ourselves within the flanking shoulders of the mountains, descending a gorge that was walled on either side with almost sheer cliffs. I should speak of these precipices as stupendous had I not first seen the terrific chasm of the far narrower and deeper gorge of the Arkansas.

To our vast relief, the bed of the pa.s.s proved to be broad and open throughout, being clear even of blocking snowdrifts. That it was habitually open was evident from the number of trees we found painted with Indian signs, clear proof that this was one of the accustomed paths of the roaming savages of the Far West. What most astonished us was the length of the gorge, which wound and twisted its way through the heart of the White Mountains in seemingly endless extent.

At last, after we had marched downward for twelve or fourteen miles, a sudden turn unmasked to our gaze a view that brought us up short in our tracks, with cries of astonishment and delight. Instead of the narrow mountain valley that we had expected to open before us, there burst upon our vision the panorama of a vast park-like country, dotted with scattered woods and groves, through which meandered numerous branching streams whose main trunk flowed to the southward. It was many miles across to the mountain range which bounded the western side of this beautiful valley.

Pike was the first among us to find his voice. "Men," he said simply, "we have won free. The worst is now behind us. This Western country is far lower than the plateau on the east side. It must be less cold; see the wide stretches of open ground. There must be game--"

"Ay! look!" I said, pointing to a mult.i.tude of black dots drifting across a snowy hillside. "Deer! a herd!"

"An' more on 'em to yan side, sir!" sang out one of the men.

"No more fear of famine!" exulted Pike. "We're safe at last!"

"But how as to savages?" I rejoined. "I see no smoke; yet in a country so abounding in game--"

"Say rather, the Spaniards, John."

"What! You surely do not think--Yet that main stream runs southward. All the accounts tell how the Rio Grande del Norte flows from the north down through the Province of Nuevo Mexico. Montgomery! can it be--"

He checked me with a gesture. But the twinkle in his eyes belied the soberness of his answer: "We have crossed the mountains in search of the Red River. Who among us can swear that yonder stream is not the Red?"

"Yet I, for one, am ready to wager it is the Rio Grande!" I cried. "The Rio Grande! Only think what that means to us--to me! I have only to descend its banks to the Spanish settlements--"

"To land in a Spanish gaol!" he rejoined. "No, John; it is for the Red River we have been seeking, and the Red River it shall be, at the least until we have built a stockade and brought up all the members of our party."

"You would defy the Spaniards!" I exclaimed.

"We will at least put ourselves into a position of defence before seeking to communicate with them."

"But a stockade on Spanish territory?"

"A small party should be conceded the right to provide against the attacks of savages. Besides, we have wandered far into a region unknown to us. If this is the Red River, our side of the stream lies within the boundaries of Louisiana Territory."

I nodded my understanding of his position. "You are right. We have a very fair argument, and can present it to Don Spaniard quite favorably--from behind the walls of a stockade."

"Or without any walls, sir!" put in Sergeant Meek. "Even with this dwindled squad, sir, give us a bunch of trees or scrub, and we'd stand off a troop of Spanish dragoons, or my name's not Meek."

"Small doubt of that, you old fire-eater!" rejoined the Lieutenant.

"It's harder to keep you in hand than it will be to whip any enemy we are like to find in this region."

The men all chuckled appreciatively at the joke.

"But just a little brush to liven us up, sir!" pleaded Meek.

"That may come, all too soon! Yet it is not our game. We did not come here to fight the Spaniards, any more than we ascended the Mississippi to fight Sioux and Chippewas and British fur-traders. No. Bear in mind that this is a peaceful expedition. So far am I from desiring a hostile encounter with the Spaniards, it is by no means certain that I could bring myself to refuse an invitation to visit their settlements, should they tender us their hospitality."

Again catching the twinkle in his blue eyes, I exclaimed impulsively: "True! why not? Why not march on down the Rio Grande without delay?"

He shook his head. "Hold hard, John. You forget that this is supposedly the Red River. Also you forget your own observation as to how much more convincing is an argument when made from behind a fortification, and,"

his voice sobered, "you forget those whom we must first rescue."

"G.o.d forgive me!" I cried. "That I should for a moment lose thought of those poor lads! Give me a detail, if no more than a single man. I will go back at once and fetch them."

"No," he replied. "We are still weak; you could not bear them through the drifts, and they cannot walk as yet. We must first build a stockade yonder in the valley. They had food enough to last many days. In good time I will send back a detachment to the Arkansas for the pack train.

The injured lads can be brought through on horseback."

"I will go now!"

"You will go with us," he commanded. "If, as is possible, we have come within measurable distance of the Spanish settlements, we must establish a fort without delay. It is imperative. I need every man of you."

When the Lieutenant spoke in that tone, there was nothing to do but obey. I turned on my heel and swung away down the pa.s.s, all the more eager to advance, since I might not turn back.

To advance! The word thrilled me throughout every fibre of my being. To advance! Well enough was it for Pike to express doubts--to talk solemnly of the Red River. He had to bear in mind the problem of diplomatic explanations to the Spaniards. But as for myself, I rejoiced in the conviction that the stream before us was in truth the Spanish River of the North; that within the distance of a few days' journey southward lay the upper Spanish settlements, beyond which, somewhere in the interior of New Spain, lay Chihuahua, the seat of government for the northern provinces, and the goal of my love-quest! I no longer doubted, I knew!

We had crossed the Sangre de Cristo! I had pa.s.sed the Barrier!