374 The Winning of the West 



two days without food. The men with frozen feet, 

 exhausted by hunger, could no longer travel. Two 

 of the soldiers went out to hunt, but got nothing. 

 At the same time, Pike and Robinson started, deter- 

 mined not to return at all unless they could bring 

 back meat. Pike wrote that they had resolved to 

 stay out and die by themselves, rather than to go 

 back to camp "and behold the misery of our poor 

 lads." All day they tramped wearily through the 

 heavy snow. Toward evening they came on a buf- 

 falo, and wounded it ; but faint and weak from hun- 

 ger, they shot badly, and the buffalo escaped; a 

 disappointment literally as bitter as death. That 

 night they sat up among some rocks, all night long, 

 unable to sleep because of the intense cold, shivering 

 in their thin rags ; they had not eaten for three days. 

 But they were men of indomitable spirit, and next 

 day, trudging painfully on, they at last succeeded, 

 after another heart-breaking failure, in killing a buf- 

 falo. At midnight they staggered into camp with 

 the meat, and all the party broke their four days' 

 fast. Two men lost their feet through frost-bite, 

 and had to be left in this camp, with all the food. 

 Only the fact that a small band of buffalo was win- 

 tering in the valley had saved the whole expedition 

 from death by starvation. 



After leaving this valley Pike and the remaining 

 men of the expedition finally reached the Rio 

 Grande, where the weather was milder and deer 

 abounded. Here they built a little fort over which 

 they flew the United States flag, though Pike well 



