A Volunteer with Pike The True Narrative of One Dr. John Robinson and of His Love for the Fair Señorita Vallois

Before I could pluck up my depressed spirits sufficiently to ask Father Rocus the thousand and one questions about my lady which for months I had been longing to have answered,...

There may be more disagreeable tasks than waiting on the uncertain favor of public officials. If so, I have never chanced upon them. Backed by letters of introduction from promi...

So it was that for the time being I found myself received into the society of the most powerful official of the North Province with a favor as cloudless and warm as the blue sky...

Delighted as I should have been, and was, to receive such a missive from my lady, its effect was to rouse in me all the greater longing to see her and win from her dear lips the...

Many even of our Western-bred officers would have considered themselves justified in lying about camp for at least a day after such a trip. Not so Pike. Toward noon of the next...

While our sour-faced boat-dealer made out his bill of sale, I wrote down a list of provisions and furnishings for the boat. Upon reading this to the senor, he suggested the addi...

The promised packet of letters was delivered to me at the Plow shortly after dark, by the man who had served coffee at the Colonel's. It was accompanied by a note in which Mr. B...

The day before our arrival at Chihuahua, when Lieutenant Malgares despatched ahead a courier with letters to his wife's father and General Salcedo, I was suddenly struck with th...

But I will dwell no more in detail upon our sufferings in that terrible valley of frost and famine. Enough said that, after bringing in the remainder of the meat for Sparks and...

Three days of waiting was the utmost I could force myself to endure. On the afternoon of the fourth I called at the house on the side street. The door was opened by the Irishwom...

It was not with a light heart that I returned to Mickie's Hotel. I had made my cast, and fortune was against me. In the afternoon I had left Alisanda smiling down upon me from t...

Had I been in funds, I should have preferred a horse for the up-river trip. As it was, I was glad of the opportunity to make the passage by boat with my friend the captain, and...

The following morning I assisted Pike in the preparation of a sketch of our trip, which had been most courteously requested by Salcedo. Walker offered his services, and would ta...

It was a wearisome journey by river and forest and swamp to New Orleans in the swelter of the July heat, but I pushed on by horse and boat to the mosquito-and-fever-plagued city...

My wits would have been those of a dolt had I not foreseen the possibility of the presence of Senorita Alisanda in the drawing-room. The chance of so favorable a meeting set my...

It was another week before I recovered a fair share of my usual strength, and I believe the kindly little surgeon kept me under his charge two or three days longer than was stri...

That afternoon, immediately after the siesta, Pike and I received the first fruits of our course of action with regard to the Government. Malgares came to us from His Excellency...

Dawn found me clad in my buckskins, ready for the start. All my articles of finery lay again in their snug retreat, and with those nightmares of beaudom disposed of in a way to...

During the journey to Santa Fe, while stopping over at the town of San Juan, where I was treated with the utmost warmth of hospitality, I was able to inform myself as to the pro...

The Lieutenant's prediction that the following evening should see us encamped at the foot of the Grand Peak was not borne out by the event. Notwithstanding our many days on the...

So far I have written at some length of our voyage, for it was these first days that set the stamp upon the relations of our little party. From the hills of Cincinnati, which we...

The escort party led by White Wolf returned three or four days after their start, but without the expedition. They had gone almost due east, which had brought them north of our...

Upon our return to Walker's quarters, the Lieutenant, who had been working hard all day, at once retired. I remained up long enough to load my pistols, and write, first, a farew...

This time, lacking the flood of sea-water, my swoon lasted much longer. I recovered to find myself in the great cabin, lying upon a luxurious berth, close to a stern window. Alr...

After several adventures and misadventures, during a march of several days to the southward, over a broken, hilly country, in which we lost the Spanish trace, we came to the bro...

One result of my pondering of the tangled situation was the resolve to keep from my friend all that concerned myself alone. He had enough and to spare of anxieties and difficult...

It was well in line with the General's character that he kept me on tenterhooks until the very afternoon before the intended day of marching. Then, as it were at the eleventh ho...

As chance would have it, Medina and I did not again meet for four or five days. In the meantime the Lieutenant and I were astonished to receive the report that an American offic...

By tacit agreement, throughout our long voyage no mention had been made of its purpose since the evening of our visit with the Blennerhassets. Intimate as had been my relations...

It was the third day after my arrival in Washington. The clear sky, which in the forenoon had lured me down from the Capitol Hill along the forest-clad banks of the little Tiber...

Upon my return I found the Lieutenant so preoccupied over an intended visit to Salcedo that one or two vague answers satisfied his curiosity about my early morning excursion. He...

It will not be thought strange that my invitation to dine with the President put me in high conceit with myself, and this notwithstanding such information as I had already acqui...

He left me none too soon. I could hear Don Pedro cursing furiously in the courtyard. Fearful that if matters came to blows, I might do an injury to the kinsman of my lady, I dra...

Fortunately I did not know that before me lay a full week of useless scheming and vain longing. Though we went about visiting and dining as usual, even two evenings at Colonel M...

The first time I was blessed with a sight of the senorita was on the day of my arrival in the Federal City,--in fact, it was upon my arrival. An inquiry in the neighborhood of t...

In the early morning they led me out beside the foremast. There were present the petty officer told off to wield the cat-o'-nine-tails, an officer to tally the strokes, Dr. Cuth...