OUR OWN TROUBLES. 53 
finally succeeded in getting out of the mazes 
of the wilderness. Among those who were 
abandoned to their fate, and left to perish thus 
miserably, was a Mr. Schenck, the same indi- 
vidual who had been shot in the thigh; a gen- 
tleman of talent and excellent family connec- 
tions, who was a brother, as I am informed, 
of the Hon. Mr. Schenck, at present a mem- 
ber of Congress from Ohio. 
But let us resume our journey. We had 
for some days, while travelling along the 
course of the Canadian, been in anxious ex- 
pectation of reaching a point from whence 
there was a cart-road to Santa Fé, made by 
the Ciboleros; but being constantly baffled 
and disappointed in this hope, serious appre- 
hensions began to be entertained by some of 
the party that we might after all be utterly 
lost. In this emergency, one of our Mexi- 
cans who pretended to be a great deal wiser 
than the rest, insisted that we were pursuing 
a wrong direction, and that every day’s march 
only took us further from Santa Fé. There ap- 
peared to be so much plausibility in his asser- 
tion, as he professed a perfect knowledge of 
all the country around, that many of our men 
were almost ready to mutiny,—to take the 
command from the hands of my brother and 
myself and lead us southward in search of 
the Colorado, into the fearful Llano Estacado, 
where we would probably have perished. But 
our observations of the latitude, which we 
took very frequently, as well as the course we 
were pursuing, completely contradicted the 
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