GEN. ZEBULON PIKE, EXPLORER 
I ordered my men to take their arms and 
separate themselves from the savages, at the 
same time declaring to them that I would 
kill the first man who touched our baggage, 
on which they commenced filing off imme- 
diately. We marched about the same time 
and found they had made out to steal one 
sword, tomahawk, broadaxe, five canteens 
and sundry other small articles.” 
On November 23 they arrived at the 
river forks on the present site of Pueblo. 
Here they built a breastwork of logs for 
defense. Then Pike started with three men 
to make a side-trip to the mountain that has 
for more than half a century borne his name. 
A week earlier on their Arkansas route he 
had seen the Grand Peak when it was more 
than a hundred miles distant. Its snowy 
crest had lured him on and now he was 
determined to try to ascend to the top. But 
he was wofully deceived as to the distance. 
He expected to be back in a day or two but 
was gone more than five days. He little 
dreamed of the obstacles in his way. He 
and his men were ill-clad, having only light 
summer clothes, and they greatly suffered 
from the cold. They also endured the pangs 
of hunger and the tortures of thirst, going 
forty-eight hours without eating. On the 
third day (November 27) they gained the 
summit of an intervening peak, Cheyenne 
Mountain. ““Here we found the snow 
middle deep,” Pike writes, “‘no sign of beast 
or bird inhabiting this region. The ther- 
mometer, which stood at 9° above zero at the 
foot of the mountain, fell to 4° below zero. 
The summit of the Grand Peak, which was 
entirely bare of vegetation and covered with 
snow, now appeared at the distance of 
fifteen or sixteen miles from us. It was as 
high again as what we had ascended, and it 
would have taken a whole day’s march to 
arrive at its base, when I believe no human 
being could have ascended to its pinnacle.” 
A few days later he attempted to measure 
the altitude of the north mountain (Pikes 
Peak), estimating its elevation to be 18,581 
feet. Scientists of our day have taken more 
accurate observations and found the height 
to be from 14,108 to 14,147 feet, or nearly 
three miles above sea level. 
ris 
It was now the first of December and it 
would have been the part of prudence to 
remain in the Pueblo camp until spring. 
Cesar, in his campaigns in ancient Gaul 
and Britain, always interrupted military 
operations for three months or more in 
winter. Captain Pike was not so sensible 
as Ceesar, or else there was a special reason 
for exposing himself and his men to the 
rigors of a winter march in the Rockies. 
Coues believes that he was acting in accord- 
ance with verbal instructions given by 
Wilkinson, who is supposed to have been 
involved in Burr’s conspiracy to found an 
empire in the Southwest; if so, then Pike’s 
course is accounted for. His “impatience 
to be moving would not permit his lying 
still” in camp. So on they went, up the 
Arkansas to the present site of Cafion City, 
and thence into South Park. They reached 
the headwaters of the South Platte and the 
Arkansas, then returned to their camp near 
Cafion City (January 5). It was a terrible 
march for man and beast, and their journey 
through the mountains into the Wet Moun- 
tain Valley and across the Sangre de 
Cristo Range recalls the dreadful experi- 
ences in the retreat of the ten thousand as 
related in Xenophon’s “‘ Anabasis.’? Frozen 
and half-starved, the little band of explorers 
were often in desperate plight. In the latter 
part of February they found themselves in 
Spanish territory, on the Rio Grande del 
Norte, which Pike supposed (as he claimed) 
to be Red River. He was brought to book 
by General Allencaster for invading New 
Spain with an armed force. This was pre- 
cisely what he wanted to happen, according 
to Dr. Coues. Be this as it may, he made 
the most of his opportunity to get informa- 
tion as to the geography and people of the 
Spanish provinces through which the party 
traversed. 
Pike’s diary of his Mexican tour forms a 
chapter of thrilling interest in the annals of 
exploration. His book, ‘‘ Exploratory Trav- 
els through the Western Territories of 
North America,” published in 1810, was 
read with avidity, for Americans then knew 
little of the Louisiana Purchase and of the 
Spanish dominions to the southwest. 
