much used up by overwork and privations.  Thus, when their strength was most needed, it was found wanting.  The Indians espied the soldiers in time to make good their flight, but not quick enough to save the lives of all their warriors.  Several of them were killed and many more were wounded.  They also lost a few of their horses, and nearly all their camp equipage.  The roughness of the section of the country where they were overtaken, assisted the savages in escaping, notwithstanding every effort was made by the Americans to prevent their leaving so easily.  Kit Carson, when describing these events, says:  “To Capt.  Sykes, who commanded the infantry, is due the greatest amount of praise for the part he acted in our adventures.  When his men were almost broken down with sore feet, long and difficult marches, want of provisions, the coldness of the weather, and with their clothing nearly worn out, and when they were on the point of giving up with despair, they were prevented from so doing by witnessing the noble example set them by their captain.  He showed them what a soldier’s duty really was, and this so touched their pride that they hobbled along as if determined to follow him until death relieved them from their sufferings.  Although this officer had a riding animal at his disposal, yet never for once did he mount him; but instead, he lent the horse to some deserving soldier who was on the point of succumbing to overwork.  When the Indian village was discovered, he cheered his men from a limping walk into a sort of run, and dashing through a swollen mountain stream, that was nearly up to their arm-pits and full of floating ice, he was, with his company, the foremost in the attack.”

Two soldiers of Captain Sykes’s company[25] were wounded, and one of them afterwards died.  The other man was severely injured, but eventually recovered.  The Indians, on being routed, were pursued through a deep canon for about four miles.  A few who had been previously wounded were overtaken and slain.  Night now came on; therefore, the men had to give up the chase, and on returning to their own encampment they found their friends had located it on the same ground which the Indians had occupied when they were first discovered.  The next morning the surviving wounded man, with an escort, was sent back to the nearest military post, so that he could receive proper attention.  The pursuit at an early hour was then resumed, by the soldiers’ taking the fresh trail of the Indians.  Away went both parties through valleys, canons, and over snow clad mountains, until, in the end, the Americans saw that it was impossible to overtake the red men, who began to break up into squads of two and three and scatter in every direction.  During the latter days of the chase, the routes which the Indians traveled were the worst they could select; their object being, entirely to use up the animals of their pursuers, who were thus vigorously driving them from one haunt to another.