I next heard him say to some one in the brush: "Come out o' heah.

Dar's Massa Buffalo Bill." Then he sang out, "Massa Bill, is you got any hawd tack ?" "Nary a hard tack; but the wagons will be along presently, and then you can get all you want," said I.
"Dat's de best news I'se heerd foah sixteen long days, Massa Bill," said he.

"Where's your command?
Where's General Penrose ?" I asked.
"I dunno," said the darkey; "we got lost, and we's been a starvin' eber since." By this time two other negroes had emerged from their place of concealment.

They had deserted Penrose's command--which was out of rations and nearly in a starving condition--and were trying to make their way back to Fort Lyon.

General Carr concluded, from what they could tell him, that General Penrose was somewhere on Polladora Creek; but we could not learn anything definite from the starved "mokes," for they knew not where they were themselves.
Having learned that General Penrose's troops were in such bad shape, General Carr ordered Major Brown to start out the next morning with two companies of cavalry and fifty pack-mules loaded with provisions, and to make all possible speed to reach and relieve the suffering soldiers.