“Yes, sir. It is right close.” “Have you found the Spanish trail?” “No, sir. But we found the river.” The two soldiers guided. When they drew near where the river was, Lieutenant Wilkinson galloped out. By the way in which he shook hands with his chief and with the doctor, he, too, had been worried. “Sure, we thought you were lost or scalped,” said John Sparks, to Stub, in camp. “No lost; you lost,” answered Stub. “Well, depends on how you look at it,” agreed John Sparks, scratching his red hair. The river was a wide river, flowing between cottonwood trees. The country was flat, and the trees had hidden the size of the river. The men began to look for trees to make boats of. Did this mean that Chief Pike was going to travel on by boat? Baroney explained. “Lieutenant Wilkinson travels down river by boat. The captain takes men and marches to the Comanches.” “Lieutenant Wilkinson, how far?” Stub asked. “Very far, to the American forts at the mouth of the river, and to report to the American father.” “Captain Pike, how far?” Baroney shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?” Stub made up his mind what _he_ was going to do. Lieutenant Pike moved the camp to the other side of the river, where the best boat-trees grew. The river was rising fast, from the rains, and everybody had to swim and arrived very wet. Rain fell almost all the time, but it was a good camp, with plenty of wood and meat. While the men under Lieutenant Wilkinson cut down trees Chief Pike and the doctor medicine-man scouted up and down the river, hunting meat and the Spanish trail. There were buffalo and antelope, but there was no Spanish trail. Lieutenant Pike grew curious about the wish-ton-wish, or prairie dogs. He found a large town of them, where the rattle-snakes and the tortoise lived, too. He and the doctor shot them, to eat, and they were good――as Stub well knew. It took true shooting, because unless a wish-ton-wish is killed dead, he crawls into his hole. The wish-ton-wish is among the smartest of animals. He digs his hole cunningly. The lieutenant and the doctor tried to fill one hole with water, and get the wish-ton-wish that way. Stub said, “No use”――he and the Pawnee boys had tried it often. And the men found out that this was true, for they spent a long time and poured in one hundred and forty kettles of water, and it all disappeared but no wish-ton-wish came out. Still, the towns were interesting places, where the dogs sat up straight with their hands across their stomachs, and held councils, like people, and whistled “Wish-ton-wish (Look out)!” whenever an enemy was sighted. A great deal of buffalo-meat was dried, for Lieutenant Wilkinson to take. Making the boats required several days. The trees were too small and soft. When one boat had at last been hollowed the men started to build another out of buffalo and elk hides, stretched over a frame. On the night before Lieutenant Wilkinson was to leave, Chief Pike the captain said to Stub: