We can get provisions
at San Jose."
"We've got to carry the provisions into the mountains on our backs?"
asked Fremont.
"We surely have," was the reply, "and we've got to lay low while
we are cooking and eating them. The Sierra del Fierro mountains,
where we are going, are lined with insurrectos, and they are not
in good humor just now."
"I'm game for anything, so long as we can get out of the beaten
way," replied Fremont. "I've felt all the way down that we were
being followed. Anyway," he continued, more cheerfully, "I shall
enjoy the sight of a mountain campfire again. We don't have to
take any matches with us. I can build a fire, Indian-fashion,
with dry sticks and a cord. My Boy Scout experiences will be
of service now, I take it."
"And you must fix up a little disguise to get over the river
in," continued Nestor. "The New York police are in communication
with the officers here, and the latter are out for the $10,000
reward. As you suspected, we have been shadowed from New York.
More than once I threw the shadows off the track, but they landed
again. There are most unusual conditions around us, and we must
be very discreet. After we get across the Rio Grande the danger
will decrease."
"It makes me feel happy again," Fremont said, after putting on
a new, cheap suit and tinting his face, "this idea of meeting
a different sort of danger. I can't stand this lurking peril--
this obsession that some one may spring out upon me from some
dark corner at any minute.
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