Chapter 7: The Wilderness

It was well on towards morning when we halted, though our pace had sunk long since into an easy jog-trot. But we waited in silence for the word of our leader, and I was right glad when he pulled his horse to a standstill, jumped to the ground and said:

“It’s time to halt, boys, and take a little rest”

And we needed rest, every one of us. The drip of the rain had ceased, but we were soaked and chilled, and our bones were sore. After we had cast round us a bit we found near by a grove of dwarfed cotton-wood, and in that we made our camp. With much difficulty we built a fire, but when at last the ruddy light of the blaze leaped up and sparkled and shone under the trees our spirits began to rise rapidly. Warmth and light bring life, and when the chill had left our bodies and our clothes were dry we felt fit for anything from a fight to a foot-race, as Pike put it. Then we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and went to sleep.

When I awoke the sun was already creeping up towards the zenith, and Henry and I were the only ones who still lay rolled in the blankets.

“We thought we’d give you kids a good rest,” said Pike, “considerin’ your gallop of last night and the fact that you ain’t used to wild life yet. But it’s been day a long time now and here are some birds b’ilin’ for your breakfast.”

I thanked him for his kindness, and soon Henry and I were helping to eat several prairie-chickens, which the men had shot. Then we prepared to start on, refreshed and full of courage and enthusiasm.

“Now, boys,” said Pike, as we mounted, “as near as I kin calkerlate, it’s about 1,500 miles from here straightaway to Californy. The summer’s gettin’ along, and now we’ve got to hustle to get across the mountains afore we’re snowed in. So we must stick to each other and the line of march, and have no skulkin’.”

“Right you are, my hearty,” said Starboard Sam; “and wherever the cappen leads, we’ll jest trim our sails and follow.”

For several days we rode on over the prairie. By day the sun shone bright and hot, but the nights were cool. The country looked fertile but the grass was turning brown, and the absence of trees made it very lonely and desolate. Hour after hour we rode on, and still, the brown country billowed away before us like the sea. Sometimes we would come to a small, shallow stream with a few cottonwoods growing on its banks, but such landmarks as these were soon left far behind, and again the brown sea, spreading out to the horizon, stretched before us. There would be a little halt for a bite to eat and to water the horses when we came to a stream, and then we would resume the march, in Indian file, one behind another. More hours of riding, and then the great red sun, round and blazing, would finish its trip down the arch of the heavens and sink behind the western rim of that brown sea. Then came the night and sleep, with our heads pillowed on saddles and untroubled by dreams.

An antelope now and then and small game supplied us with fresh food. I was expert with the rifle, and I did my share in filling the larder. We watched for the Indians, but as we saw no signs of them the subject soon became a joke with us.

“I don’t want to ride through to San Francisco without seeing a single Indian,” said Magrane, who had Irish blood in him, as his name indicated; “and I believe if we should find a party of them they’d gallop away from us.”

Pike said we had certainly been in luck so far as the Indians were concerned, and the reports of trouble probably had been exaggerated greatly. I believed so too. Often by the camp-fire Pike told us interesting stories of Indian wars, and Henry listened to them eagerly.

“Them critters must be worse than the Barbary pirates,” Starboard Sam would say after Pike had finished some literally hair-lifting story.