Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/184

166 thereupon proceeded to "tease him with importunities;" but under this treatment the general became surly. "How earnestly I wished that he and I had been together in the wild woods, and I armed with my rifle!" writes Pattie. This could not be, but he refused to translate any more letters, and the governor, striking him on the head with the flat of his sword, had him dragged again to prison to lie and rot.

The suggestion of profit from the furs had, however, taken root; and early in September the prisoners were released, allowed once more to see each other, and promised permission to go to the Colorado, greatly to their delight. "I was convinced that Mexico could not array force enough to bring us back alive. I foresaw that the general would send no more than ten or twelve soldiers with us. I knew that it would be no more than an amusement to rise upon them, take their horses for our own riding, flea some of them of their skins to show that we knew how to inflict torture, and send the rest back to the general on foot." Pattie was allowed to go to the mission to hire horses for the trip; but at the last moment Echeandía remarked that he could spare no soldiers to go with them. It did not matter, they said, though it spoiled their plan of vengeance. But the governor added that one must remain as a hostage for the return of the rest, and Pattie was the man selected. "At this horrible sentence, breaking upon us in the sanguine rapture of confidence, we all gazed at each other in the consternation of despair;" but Pattie urged them to go and follow their inclinations about coming back. They came back at the end of September. The furs had all been spoiled by the overflow of the river, and the traps were sold to pay the mule-hire. Two of the six, however, failed to return, having left their companions on the Colorado and started for New Mexico.