Cowan ate enough to keep himself alive and lay down in silent joy to sleep the night through. Towards morning he was awakened by awful heat, and found to his dismay that the vegetable mold he was lying on had taken fire and encircled him with flames. He rose on hands and knees and suffering terribly, crawled across the charred area to safety. His hands and legs were badly burned.[201] In the meantime his scattered companions were being united. Mr. Harmon was the first to reach General Howard’s encampment at Henrys Lake. Arnold and Dingee arrived after several days and nights of hardship. Myers and Oldham were encountered by Howard’s scouts. The latter was in a pitiful state. His tongue was so swollen, as a result of his wound, that he could not speak. Shock and exposure to the cold nights, together with lack of food for four days, had left its mark upon them all. Howard reluctantly took the whole delegation along, and on August 29 they joined Cowan in the Lower Geyser Basin. Arnold said Cowan was a “most pitiful looking object. He was covered with blood, which had dried on him, and he was as black as a negro.” Here Cowan learned of his wife’s safety, and that news, together with his friend Arnold’s “unremitting attentions,” pulled him through. The army surgeon ministered to the physical wounds of the men but no sympathy was forthcoming. The Radersburg men desired to return home by way of Henrys Lake, but they were bundled along with the command, over roads that were: simply horrible and almost impassable for wagons. At times we were compelled to lower them over precipices with ropes, and again we would hitch a rope to a wagon and pull it up the hill by man power.[202] In the meantime Frank Carpenter, along with Lieutenant Doane’s command, pressed toward the Park. They found Henderson’s ranch buildings in flames. A band of renegade Nez Percé were spreading terror in their wake. Camp was established there anyway, and a courier arrived, directing Lieutenant Doane to mark time until joined by Colonel Charles C. Gilbert and the Seventh Infantry. Carpenter’s plan to return and bury Cowan was again frustrated. A promise to perform that function, given by a frontiersman named Houston induced Carpenter to return to Bozeman. There he learned that all members of the party were safe and accounted for except Cowan. The news that Cowan was still alive reached him a few days later when he met the two scouts who had found Cowan just a week before. Perhaps no one else could have convinced him his friend was alive. [Illustration: M. D. Beal Detail map showing Nez Percé movements in Yellowstone Park.] Legend: