LOST WITH LIEUTENANT PIKE

HOW FROM THE PAWNEE VILLAGE THE BOY NAMED SCAR HEAD MARCHED WITH THE YOUNG AMERICAN CHIEF CLEAR INTO THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS; HOW IN THE DEAD OF WINTER THEY SEARCHED FOR THE LOST RIVER AND THOUGHT THAT THEY HAD FOUND IT; AND HOW THE SPANISH SOLDIERY CAME UPON THEM AND TOOK THEM DOWN TO SANTA FÉ OF NEW MEXICO, WHERE ANOTHER SURPRISE AWAITED THEM

BY EDWIN L. SABIN

AUTHOR OF “GENERAL CROOK AND THE FIGHTING APACHES,” “OPENING THE WEST WITH LEWIS AND CLARK,” “BUFFALO BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL,” ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES H. STEPHENS PORTRAIT AND A MAP

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1919, J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.

TO THOSE COUNTLESS OTHER AMERICANS

WHO IN 1917 AND 1918 BRAVELY FOLLOWED, LIKE YOUNG LIEUTENANT PIKE, THE TRAIL OF HONOR, FLAG AND DUTY

I. Always preserve your honor free from blemish.

II. Be ready at all times to die for your country.

General Pike’s rules for his little son.

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FOREWORD

This story takes the adventure trail of that young soldier-explorer Zebulon Montgomery Pike, who was lost in the mountains of southern Colorado one hundred years ago. Another story in the Trail Blazers Series has told of Captains Lewis and Clark, who explored the northwestern part of the new Louisiana Territory. They, also, were young. Captain Lewis had just turned thirty. But Lieutenant and Captain Zebulon Pike was younger yet. He was only twenty-seven when, while Lewis and Clark were still out, he was sent to lead a handful of men into the unknown Southwest.

The vast Province of Louisiana, bought by the United States from France three years before, for $15,000,000, was thought by the United States to extend, in the north, from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains; in the south it tapered off to the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans.

The southwestern boundary was uncertain. The United States claimed clear to the lower Rio Grande River, across Texas; Spain, which had owned Louisiana Territory before the United States bought it from France, claimed north even to the Missouri[8] River. Some said that the Arkansas River of southern Colorado should be the boundary, there; some said the Red River, further south—which was confused with the Canadian River. And when Lieutenant Pike was started out, the United States soldiers and the Spanish soldiers of Mexico faced each other across the Sabine River of the western border of Louisiana State.

So the trail of young Pike and his handful of men pointed into a debated land. If the Indians did not get them, the Spanish might. He had been instructed not to offend the Spanish, and to keep away from their settlements of New Mexico; but he was resolved to stand his ground when he deemed that he was in the right, and to defend the Flag. The Spanish had sent six hundred soldiers, with over two thousand horses and mules, to look for him. He would certainly have fought them all, with his twenty men, had they tried to stop him anywhere outside of New Mexico.

No braver soldiers ever marched than Lieutenant Pike and his little platoon. They lost their way; they struggled with cold below zero and snow to their waists, in the bleak high mountains. They had left home with only summer clothing; they were ragged and lean, and their feet froze until the bones came out. They went days at a time without food.[9] And they were utterly lost, in a winter country; alone, one thousand miles from home.

But only once did a single man complain aloud. Their wonderful leader sternly silenced him, by reminding him that they all were sharing and suffering alike.

When their lieutenant had been gone from them two days, seeking meat to relieve a famine, at his return he writes in his journal: “On the countenances of the men was not a frown, nor was there a desponding eye; all seemed happy to hail their officer and companions; yet not a mouthful had they eaten for four days.” Indeed, they were planning to send out and rescue him.

It was this same spirit which made the American soldiers in France press forward, ever forward, and yield not an inch of ground.

Lieutenant Pike was an officer to love as well as to respect. He asked no favors; only obedience, and willingness to endure what he had to endure. He never spared himself. While others might stay in camp, he it was that went out into the cold and snow, hunting for meat. He made it plain that his honor, his country and his duty were more to him than his life. These were the three ideals that inspired him to go on when he might have been excused[10] for camping in safety and giving up his search for the Red River.

The name of Pike lives in history. We have a famous mountain named for him, and we know that he died—“killed in action”—as a brigadier-general, aged thirty-four. The names of his brave men have vanished. What became of John Sparks, Pat Smith, Jacob Carter, and the rest, we do not know. We do not know that the Government even rescued from the Spaniards those whom their lieutenant had been obliged to leave. We do not know that any of them received gifts of land and extra pay, such as the Lewis and Clark men received. But heroes they were, every one, who did not fail their leader nor their flag.

So their company roll is printed in this book, that they also may live again.

The Author

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ILLUSTRATIONS

[14]

LIEUTENANT ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIKE

From the First Edition of His “Expeditions” Philadelphia, 1810

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BRIGADIER-GENERAL ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIKE

A noble young American soldier and explorer, whose guiding purpose was: Honor, Country, Duty.

Born January 5, 1779, at Lamberton, near Trenton, New Jersey.

His father was Captain Zebulon Pike, of the Fourth Continental Dragoons, in the War of the Revolution; later major in the Third and the First Regiments of Infantry, U. S. A., and brevet lieutenant-colonel.

The boy Zebulon was brought up as a soldier.

At fifteen he was a cadet in his father’s infantry regiment of the United States Third Sub-Legion.

At twenty, or in March, 1799, he was commissioned second lieutenant in the Second Regiment of Infantry, U. S. A.

Commissioned first lieutenant, November, the same year.

Transferred to the First Infantry, of which his father was major, in April, 1802. In this regiment Meriwether Lewis, of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition to the mouth of the Columbia River, was then a captain.

At the age of twenty-six, while Captains Lewis and Clark are exploring through the far northwest of the new Louisiana Territory purchase, he receives orders, July 30, 1805, from General James Wilkinson, Chief of the Army, to ascend the Mississippi River from St. Louis to its source. He is to report upon the country, the Indians and the fur trade of this, the eastern border of Upper Louisiana.

Starts from St. Louis, August 9, 1805, with twenty enlisted men of the regular army, in a keel-boat seventy feet long, provisioned for four months. Suffers many hardships by[16] storm, cold and hunger, but returns successful on the last day of April, 1806, after an absence of almost nine months.

In less than two months, or on June 24, 1806, he is directed to ascend the Missouri and Osage Rivers, and restore forty-six Osage Indians, rescued by the Government from the Potawatomi Indians, to their people of the Osage towns in western Missouri. He is to make peace, by order of their American father, between the Osage and the Kansas nations. He is then to continue to the Pawnees of present northern Kansas, and ask them to help him on to make peace with the Comanches in the southwest on the borders of New Mexico. While with the Comanches he is to explore the head-waters of the Arkansas and Red (Canadian) Rivers, but he must avoid trespassing upon the Spanish territory of New Mexico. Spanish territory is supposed to extend south from the Red River, although the Spanish claim that it extends much farther north, even through Kansas.

Again he leaves his family, and embarks, July 15, 1806, with First Lieutenant James B. Wilkinson, First Infantry, the son of General Wilkinson; Civilian Surgeon John H. Robinson, an interpreter, and eighteen enlisted men, in two boats. The majority of the enlisted men had been with him up the Mississippi.

He visits the Osages, who welcome the return of their relatives, and agree to peace with the Kansas. The Pawnees try to stop him, by order of the Spanish, but he defies them. He fails to find the Comanches. His march by horse and foot takes him along the Arkansas River clear to the Rocky Mountains, where he sights the great Pike’s Peak (later named for him) of Colorado, and attempts to climb it. Searching for the head of the Red River, that he may follow down to the military posts of the United States frontier, he loses his way completely. In the bitter cold and deep snows of a terrible winter he crosses the front range of the Rockies, and builds a stockade upon a stream of the Upper Rio Grande River in the lower end of the San Luis Valley, southern Colorado.

Here in mid-winter Spanish soldiers from Santa Fé come upon him and inform him that he is in Spanish territory. They[17] take him down to Santa Fé, the capital of the Province of New Mexico. He is sent on down to the military headquarters at Chihuahua, Mexico. From there he is sent to the United States, and arrives at the American post of Natchitoches, western Louisiana, on July 1, 1807, after travels of a year.

As the first Government explorer through far southwestern Louisiana Territory he brings back much valuable information upon the country and Indians, and upon the people, military forces and customs of Mexico. Captains Lewis and Clark have brought back also their information upon the far Northwest.

Meanwhile, as a reward for his services, he had been promoted to captain, August 12, 1806.

Commissioned major, in the Sixth U. S. Infantry, May, 1808.

Commissioned lieutenant-colonel, Fourth U. S. Infantry, December, 1809.

Commissioned colonel, Fifteenth U. S. Infantry, July, 1812.

Appointed brigadier-general, adjutant-general and inspector-general, U. S. A., March, 1813.

Killed in action, April 27, 1813, while commanding the assault by the American troops upon York, at Toronto, Canada. The retreating British garrison blew up a powder magazine, and a fragment of rock crushed his back. He died wrapped in the Flag, amidst victory, at the age of only thirty-four.

THE PIKE PARTIES

Up the Mississippi (1805–1806)

Into the Southwest (1806–1807)

THE TRAIL OF LIEUTENANT PIKE

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LOST WITH LIEUTENANT PIKE

I THE COMING OF THE SPANIARDS

“Ai-ee! I see them!” panted Iskatappe, over his shoulder, and pointing to the west. “The Spanish!”

“It may be running buffalo, or a big wind,” answered Skidi.

“Shall we halt and wait?” proposed Letalesha.

“No. It is they. It does not move fast enough for buffalo or wind. It is on this side of the river. We will cross the river and hide on the other side. Then we will be safe,” ordered Iskatappe.

Boy Scar Head, at the rear, peered hard and he, too, sighted a dust cloud far westward, tinging the horizon above the rolling, sandy landscape.

This was the Corn month, July, 1806. The four were travelling in single file at fast dog-trot down through the northern end of Texas where the Canadian River crosses. Iskatappe, or Rich Man, led. He was second chief of the nation. Skidi, or Wolf, came next. He was a warrior. Letalesha, or[20] Old Knife, trotted third. He was a sub-chief. And at the rear there trotted Scar Head, who was not yet even a warrior, because he was just a boy; but some day he should be a warrior, and a chief, if he proved brave and smart.

They were odd-looking Indians, clad in only moccasins and buffalo-robes. The three men had their heads closely shaven except for a short pompadour ridge like a rooster comb, ending in the scalp-lock. With a paste of buffalo tallow and red clay this scalp-lock was made to stand up stiff and curved forward in shape of a horn. By that sign, and by the sign of their travelling afoot, and by their tall stature and high cheek-bones, friends and enemies would have known them at once as Pawnees from a nation of fierce fighters.

However, nobody would have taken Scar Head for a Pawnee. He did not wear the horn—he was not yet a warrior. He wore a red cloth band around his head, to keep his long brown hair out of his eyes. He was short and stocky, with a pug nose and with freckles showing through his darkly tanned skin. No, he did not appear to be a Pawnee, nor an Indian at all.

Still, he ranked as a son of Charakterik, head chief of the Pawnee Republic nation. Chief Charakterik had sent him out on the warrior trail to get[21] experience. He was called Scar Head by reason of the patch of white hair that grew over a queer, hot spot on his head. He felt like an Indian and acted like an Indian; but all he knew was that he had been traded by the mountain Utahs to the plains Pawnees, several years ago, and that Chief Charakterik had adopted him.

The four had set out from the main Pawnee Republic village of round mud huts on the Republican River in present northern Kansas two weeks back. The Pawnees always started from home on foot, except when hunting game. They thought that they could take care of themselves better that way. A man on foot could hide in country where a man on horse might be seen. But they were expected to return on horseback, with other horses stolen or captured, for to win horses was the test of a Pawnee brave.

Scar Head hoped to learn a great deal about horse-stealing, although this was not really a horse-stealing scout. Nevertheless——

“If we are not given horses by the Spaniards, we will get them elsewhere,” had said Rich Man.

“Yes; we will get them from the Spaniards, anyway,” had replied Skidi. “They will have many horses, easy to steal. But in order to keep friendly[22] with us, they will surely give us some, when they see we are poor and afoot.”

The dust cloud was welcome. It was time that the Spaniards should be sighted—those Spanish soldiers who, according to the report received by Chief Charakterik, were marching from New Mexico into the Indian country, no one knew why. To find out was the business of the Iskatappe squad.

The dust cloud hung in the air, moving slowly with the distant breeze. When finally the four reached the bank of the river, the cloud was much nearer.

“We will cross, and watch them; and to-night we will go into their camp,” said Iskatappe.

So they swam and waded the shallow river, and crawled out into a clump of willows, to wait until the strangers should pass.

Soon, to the west they might see a column of mounted figures coming on, following the course of the river but staying back from it on account of the deep washes, or maybe from fear that their thirsty horses might bolt into quicksands.

“They are many times ten,” murmured Skidi, counting by the fingers on his hands.

“It is only an advance guard,” Letalesha said. “A bigger dust cloud is behind them.”

And that was so. The advance guard of horsemen[23] seemed to be scouting along the river, as if seeking a good trail to water for the others. Boy Scar Head strained his eyes to see as much as the warriors saw. Over the yellow desert shimmering with the hot air the riders steadily cantered, under several fluttering pennons borne on lances; and anybody might tell by the way they rode that they were warriors themselves.

They were going to strike the river only a short distance below. Suddenly Skidi drew quick breath.

“Apaches! Look! It will be a fight.”

“Hi!” Iskatappe uttered. “Let nobody move. We are safe here, if we don’t move.”

The scene had changed in a twinkling. A perfect swarm of Indians had burst from the very ground out there, and with shrill yells were racing to hem the Spanish between them and the river. How they had hidden themselves so well was remarkable, but it was an Indian trick and these were Apaches, who knew how to hide in the sand itself.

They outnumbered the Spanish three to one. The Spanish leader rapidly formed his column—he rode a white horse, the horses of his men were dark. On charged the Apaches, whooping and brandishing their bows and lances, as if they did not intend to stop until they had ridden right over the enemy; when on a sudden the guns of the Spanish puffed[24] white smoke. Instantly every Apache fell to hang on the side of his horse; and back and forth they all scurried, shooting with their bows. The arrow stems glinted in the sun like streaks of hail.

“That is a good chief,” Iskatappe praised. “He knows how to fight.”

For the Apache chief had ordered half his men to dismount, and turn their horses loose. The other half stayed in the saddle. They charged, with the footmen running behind; the Spanish horsemen charged to meet them; then the Apache horsemen separated to right and left and the footmen volleyed with arrows.

This made the Spanish halt, to answer with guns. The Apache footmen darted back, behind their horsemen, and these charged again, to lure the Spanish on into bow-shot.

Boy Scar Head quivered with excitement. It was the first real battle that he remembered to have seen. The others were tense, too, and staring eagerly.

“With half that number of Pawnees I would eat those Spanish up,” Skidi boasted. “We all would take scalps and horses and be rich.”

“Those Spanish have guns and much powder and lead,” replied Old Knife. “It is hard to fight[25] guns with bows. But one big charge, and all would be over.”

The battle slowly traveled. It was getting directly opposite, as the Apaches gradually gave ground and the Spanish took ground. Scarcely anybody appeared to have been hurt yet; there were no dead on the sand and all the wounded stayed in their saddles. The column in the distance was making a larger dust, as if hastening to the rescue.

The Apaches no doubt knew this. Now on a sudden the noise quieted. The Apache chief had cantered forward from among his men, shaking his lance. He was a very heavy man, with a very long lance; upon his arm was a red shield. He rode a fine spotted horse.

“The chiefs will fight, maybe,” quoth Letalesha. “That is the way to settle it.”

The Apache chief spoke in a loud voice, holding his lance high; but the Spanish chief on the white horse waved him back and evidently said no.

“The Spanish chief is a coward,” Skidi asserted. “He has a small heart.”

“Why should he risk losing his scalp, when he is winning and he has enough men coming to burn the Apaches like dry grass?” argued the wise Old Knife.

The Apache chief sat a moment, waiting; then[26] he turned back for his own party. From the Spanish a great shout arose, that made him again turn, quickly.

“Ai-ee! It will be a fight, man to man, after all!” Iskatappe exclaimed.

A Spanish soldier had dashed past his chief, and was galloping into the clear, flourishing his sword. It was a challenge. The chief sped to meet him. They both crouched behind their round shields. A moment—and they came together. The Spanish horseman thrust his shield forward, to throw aside the chief’s lance point. But he did not catch it full. He only threw it higher, so that it glanced on and struck him in the throat—went straight through. He fell off, backward. Jerking the lance out, the Apache chief scoured by, in a half circle, with a whoop of victory.

“Hi, yi!” Old Knife grunted. “There is blood and a scalp.”

What a yell broke from the Apaches and the Spaniards both—a yell of triumph from the one, a yell of vengeance from the others! The Spanish charged, firing their guns, to save the scalp, and to kill. The Apaches scattered; their chief galloped hither-thither, urging them to stand, but they had no stomachs for more fighting at close quarters and the rest of the Spanish were spurring in.

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