The mountains seemed to rise from a bare prairie which grew no wood. The lieutenant had left the stream, so as to aim more directly for a low place in the range; but he was not to cross, to-day. The range was farther than it looked to be. The sun set—and here they were, in the cold open, without wood or water either, or a bite to eat.
"There's timber at the base of those first slopes," he said. "We'll have to push on, men, until we reach it. The night will be too cold for existing with no fires."
Suddenly they were barred by the creek, and needs must ford it through ice that broke under their moccasins. It was long after dark, and was stinging cold, when they arrived at the trees. The men stumbled wearily; Stub could not feel his feet at all. Nobody had complained, though—but when the fires had been built and they all started to thaw themselves out, the doctor found that nine pairs of
- [Footnote:
into New Mexico, and are a noble snowy range indeed. The early Spanish explorers from the south named them Sangre de Cristo, or Blood of Christ, because when first sighted they were bathed red in the reflection from a New Mexico sunset. And this frequently is their sunset coloring today. From the block-house beyond present Cañon City north of the Arkansas River the Pike men had marched south across the river, and probably had followed up Grape Creek, which descends from the east slope of the Sangre de Cristo—the Great White Mountains.]
