Stub gravely nodded.
"Winter come soon," he answered.
"An' aren't ye cold, boy?" queried John Sparks. "In only your skin an' a buff'lo robe?"
"No cold," Stub asserted. That was all the Pawnees wore. He was used to it.
The day dawned clear. After eating, Sergeant Meek marched the men up along the river. With Lieutenant Pike and the doctor, Stub crossed to help find the Spanish trail. They had to break a way through the ice. The ice cut the horses' legs, the stinging water splashed high, soaking moccasins and drenching the lieutenant and the doctor above the knees. The lieutenant wore thin blue cotton leggins—a sort of trousers called overalls; now these clung to him tightly.
Stub rather preferred his own skin, for it shed water.
The Spanish had camped over here. There were lots of horse sign showing through the snow, in a space of more than a mile. The Spanish seemed to have grown in numbers. It was an old camp, and the trail out of it had been flattened by buffalo tracks, and by the snows and rains. So they three—Lieutenant Pike, the doctor, and Stub—made circles, as they rode up river, to cut the trail farther on.
They did not find it until noon. But they found
