On November 15, “at 2 o’clock in the afternoon I thought I could distinguish a mountain to our right, which appeared like a small blue cloud; viewed it with the spy-glass, and was still more confirmed in my conjecture, yet only communicated it to Dr. Robinson, who was in front with me; but in half an hour they appeared in full view before us. When our small party arrived on the hill they with one accord gave three cheers to the Mexican mountains. Their appearance can easily be imagined by those who have crossed the Alleghanies; but their sides were whiter, as if covered with snow, or a white stone. Those were a spur of the grand western chain of mountains which divide the waters of the Pacific from those of the Atlantic Ocean; and the spur divides the waters which empty into the Bay of the Holy Spirit from those of the Mississippi, as the Alleghanies do those which discharge themselves into the latter river and the Atlantic. They appear to present a natural boundary between the province of Louisiana and New Mexico, and would be a defined and natural boundary.” On the same day they came to the Purgatory River, or River of Souls. Here the Arkansas appeared to carry much more water than below, and was apparently navigable.
CHAPTER XV
ZEBULON M. PIKE III
On November 22, as Pike and Dr. Robinson, and Vasquez, the interpreter, were riding ahead of the command, they met a party of sixty Pawnees returning from an unsuccessful war party. Half of them were armed with guns, and about half with bows, arrows and lances. They met the white men in a very friendly manner, but crowded about them; and at the same time treated them in so boisterous and disrespectful, and yet good-natured a way, as to cause them some uneasiness. Pike prepared to smoke with them, and offered them some small presents, with which they were quite dissatisfied; so that for some time the pipes “lay unmoved, as if they were undetermined whether to treat us as friends or enemies; but after some time we were presented with a kettle of water, drank, smoked and ate together.” The Pawnees treated the presents given them with more or less contempt, and some even threw them away.
“We began to load our horses, when they encircled us and commenced stealing everything they could. Finding it was difficult to preserve my pistols, I mounted my horse, when I found myself frequently surrounded; during which some were endeavoring to steal the pistols. The doctor was equally engaged in another quarter, and all the soldiers in their positions, in taking things from them. One having stolen my tomahawk, I informed the chief; but he paid no respect, except to reply that ‘they were pitiful.’ Finding this, I determined to protect ourselves, as far as was in my power, and the affair began to take a serious aspect. 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 immediately; we marched about the same time, and found they had made out to steal one sword, tomahawk, broad-ax, five canteens, and sundry other small articles. After leaving them, when I reflected on the subject, I felt myself sincerely mortified, that the smallness of my number obliged me thus to submit to the insults of lawless banditti, it being the first time a savage ever took anything from me with the least appearance of force.”
It was near the end of November. Provisions were scarce; but on the 26th, Pike killed a “new species of deer”—a blacktail, or mule deer. The real troubles of the expedition were beginning, for the weather was growing cold, snow fell, and the water was freezing. The men who had started from St. Louis in July, prepared for a summer excursion, had worn out their shoes and clothing, and were half naked, in winter, among the high mountains of the Rockies. Some of them froze their feet. They made such foot gear as they could from the hide of the buffalo, but many had used up their blankets, by cutting them to pieces for socks, and had nothing with which to cover themselves at night, no matter how cold the weather, or how deep the snow. Pike worked backward and forward among the canyons, on streams at the head of the Arkansas, and passed over the divide between that river and the head waters of the South Platte, and then back on to the Arkansas, near what is now called the Royal Gorge. Here he came on the site of an immense Indian camp, occupied not long before, which had a large cross in the middle; and which, though he then did not know it, was a big camp of Kiowas and Comanches, with whom had been a white man, James Pursley. The party was constantly suffering for food, and often went for days without eating, and were almost without protection from the weather. Pike never ceased his efforts to cross the mountains to the supposed head of the Red River (the Canadian), which he had been ordered to find. Deep though the snow might be, and bitter the cold, with his men and himself equally hungry and equally frozen, passing through a country almost impracticable for horses, where the animals themselves had to be dragged along, and often unloaded and hauled up steep mountain sides, he kept on. On some occasions the little party of sixteen were divided into eight different expeditions, struggling not along the trail, but to get over the mountains, on the one hand, and on the other, to kill something which might give food to the party. Their guns now had begun to fail them; a number burst; others were bent and broken by the rough usage. Even Pike, who scarcely ever permits a word of complaint to escape him, says, on January 5, after breaking his gun: “This was my birthday, and most fervently did I hope never to pass another so miserably.”
Matters had reached such a point that it was useless to attempt to drag the horses any further. Pike determined to build a small block-house, and leave there a part of his baggage, the horses, and two men; and then, with the remainder of their possessions on their backs, to cross the mountains on foot, find the Red River, and send back a party to bring on the horses and baggage by some easy route. They started on January 14, each carrying an average of seventy pounds, and marched nearly south, following up the stream now known as Grape Creek. They had not gone far before the men began to freeze their feet, and were unable to travel. They had little or no food, but, at last, Dr. Robinson, after two days’ hunting, during which they met with constant misfortunes, managed to kill a buffalo, loads of which were brought back to camp. Leaving two of the disabled men behind, with as much provision as possible, promising to send relief to them as soon as they could, Pike and the others pushed on, making their slow way through the deep snow. They were soon again without food; and again the doctor and Pike, who appear to have been by all odds the men of the party, succeeded in killing a buffalo, and satisfying the hunger of the company. It was on this day, January 24, that Pike heard the first complaint. One of his men declared “that it was more than human nature could bear, to march three days without sustenance, through snows three feet deep, and carry a burden only fit for horses.” This was very bitter to the leader, and he administered a rebuke, which, though severe, was so eminently just and sympathetic as to increase the devotion which his men must have felt for such a leader.
For a little time they had food, and the weather became more mild. Now turning to the right, they crossed through the mountains, and came within sight of a large river, flowing nearly north and south. This, although the explorer did not know it, was the Rio Grande del Norte. Travelling down toward this stream, they came to a large west branch; and here Pike determined to build a fort, for a protection for a portion of his party, while the remainder should be sent back to bring on the men who had been left behind at different points. Deer were plenty, and it seemed to be a spot where life could be supported. Pike laid out a plan for his block-house, which was on the edge of the river, and was surrounded by a moat, and a dirt rampart.
From this point Dr. Robinson set out alone for Santa Fé. The purpose of his trip was to spy out the land, and to learn what he could with regard to the Spanish government, and the opportunities for trade there. In the year 1804, Mr. Morrison, a merchant of Kaskaskia, had sent across the plains a creole of the country, one Baptiste La Lande, with goods which he was to trade at Santa Fé. La Lande had never returned, and it was believed that he had remained in Santa Fé, and had appropriated to himself the property of his employer. When Pike was about to start on his westward expedition, Mr. Morrison made over to him his claim on La Lande, in the hope that some of his property might be recovered, and this claim assigned to Robinson was the pretext for his trip to Santa Fé. In other words: Robinson was, as Dr. Coues remarked, a spy. It is true that Spain and the United States were not then at war, but there was a more or less hostile feeling between the two governments; or, if not between the two governments, at least between the citizens of the two powers residing on the borders of the respective territories. More than that, as already stated, the Aaron Burr conspiracy—with which Pike was wholly unacquainted—was known to the Spaniards, as was also Pike’s starting for the west. The Spanish authorities unquestionably connected the two things, and were disposed to look with great suspicion on any Americans who entered their territory.