As Lieutenant Freeman dropped from his horse I asked him if he was hurt. He replied, "I am gone." He wished me to cut a piece of string which was around his neck, and supported a part of the antelope which he was carrying. As I cut the string he changed his position more on his side and more up hill. He asked faintly for water, which I gave him from my canteen, and by this time the scouts had mounted their horses and left us. The Indians were then all around us, and one at the side of the lake; but as the scouts ran toward them they fell back. Lieutenant Freeman, by this time being dead, I took his rifle and revolver and followed the scouts as fast as I could. The Indians mentioned as near the lake, seeing the Lieutenant's horse, which followed me, left us and started for the horse, thus enabling me to overtake the scouts. The Indians succeeded in catching the horse, and the whole crowd again started after us. We rode for about four miles, when we were overtaken and surrounded by them by the side of a little marsh. We all jumped from our horses. The scouts made motions and ran up to meet them, but Chaska motioned for me to jump into the tall rushes on the marsh. I saw nothing more of the scouts, and the Indians all rushed down to where the horses were. I cocked my rifle, and lay in the rushes within ten feet of where they were, and heard them quarrel about the possession of the horses. They presently settled their dispute and started off, for fear, as I supposed, of being overtaken by some of our forces. They took their course around the marsh in which I lay for an hour; this was about three p. m. A shower came up, and immediately after it cleared I started on my course, with the sun to my back, and traveled for two hours. I followed this direction for two days, stopping in marshes during the night. On the evening of the second day I struck a river of clear water, about a quarter of a mile wide, running in a southerly direction. Next morning I started due south, and traveled until almost night, when I took a westerly course, concluding that the trail was not in that direction; traveled a little to north of west, and struck Gen. Sibley's trail the afternoon of the third day, about twelve miles from where we camped the night before. I left the main column, and made the deserted camp that night. I started next morning on the back track for Camp Atchison, and made the painful journey in two days, arriving there the second night, between eight and nine o'clock, making the distance of the four camps in two days, bare-headed, barefooted and coatless. I was obliged to leave my rifle on the last day of my travel, but I could not carry it any farther, and made up my mind that this would probably be my last day. It was probably about nine o'clock, and I was about to give up when I came to a few tents and found them to be those of the Pioneers (Captain Chase's company of the Ninth Minnesota Infantry), and fell to the ground faint and unable to rise again.