Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/185

Rh In the absence of his companions, Pattie, by advice of Bradshaw and Perkins, had written a letter to Jones, consul of the United States at the Sandwich Islands, imploring intervention in his own behalf, and then he lay in his cell, harassed by continual threats of being shot at as a target, hanged, or burned alive. Soon came news from the north that the small-pox was raging in the missions. Fortunately Pattie had a small quantity of vaccine matter, and he resolved to make the best possible use of his advantage. Negotiations followed, which gave the young trapper many opportunities to show what could be done by the tongue of a free American citizen. In return for the liberty of himself and companions, he offered to vaccinate everybody in the territory; refusing his own liberty, refusing to vaccinate the governor himself, though trembling in fear of death, refusing even to operate on the arm of his beautiful guardian angel, the Señorita Pico, unless his proposition were accepted. There were many stormy scenes, and Pattie was often remanded to prison with a curse from Echeandía, who told him he might die for his obstinacy. But at last the governor had to yield. Certain old black papers in possession of the trappers, as interpreted by Pattie, were accepted as certificates of American citizenship, and in December all were freed for a week as an experiment.