[Illustration: Pike Leaving the Two Comrades with Frozen Feet at the Log Fort They Built Near Canon City.] "Tuesday, 20th of January.--The doctor and all the men able to march returned to the buffalo to bring in the remainder of the meat. On examining the feet of those who were frozen, we found it impossible for two of them to proceed, and two others only without loads by the help of a stick. One of the former was my waiter, a promising young lad of twenty, whose feet were so badly frozen as to present every possibility of his losing them. The doctor and party returned toward evening loaded with the buffalo meat. "Tuesday, 17th of February.--* * * This evening the corporal and three of the men arrived, who had been sent back to the camp of their frozen companions. They informed me that two more would arrive the next day, one of them was Menaugh, who had been left alone on the 27th of January; but the other two, Dougherty and Spark, were unable to come. They said that they had hailed them with tears of joy and were in despair when they again left them with a chance of never seeing them more. They sent on to me some of the bones taken out of their feet and conjured me by all that was sacred not to leave them to perish far from the civilized world. Oh! little did they know my heart if they could suspect me of conduct so ungenerous! No, before they should be left, I would for months have carried the end of a litter in order to secure them the happiness of once more seeing their native homes and being received in the bosom of a grateful country. Thus these poor fellows are to be invalids for life, made infirm at the commencement of manhood and in the prime of their course; doomed to pass the remainder of their days in misery and want. For what is the pension? Not sufficient to buy a man his victuals! What man would even lose the smallest of his joints for such a trifling pittance?"