Cliffs of the Rio Virgin, about 2500 Feet High.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Geol. Survey.
They now proceeded with the ebb tide, stopping with the beginning of the flood, constantly on the lookout for the Spanish settlements, and not till the 28th, when they saw before them such a commotion of waters that their small craft would be instantly engulfed, and wide sandy stretches, perfectly barren, all round, did they realise what a mistake they had made.
“The fierce billows,” says Pattie, “shut us in from below, the river current from above, and murderous savages on either hand on the shore. We had a rich cargo of furs, a little independence for each one of us could we have disposed of them among the Spanish people whom we expected to have found here. There were no such settlements. Every side on which we looked offered an array of danger, famine, or death. In this predicament what were furs to us.”
In order to escape they worked their way back up the river as far as they could by rowing, poling, and towing, but on February 10th they met a great rise which put a stop to progress. They now abandoned the canoes, buried the furs in deep pits, and headed for the coast settlements of California. After many vicissitudes, which I am unable to relate here, they finally arrived, completely worn out, at the Spanish mission of St. Catherine.
Now they believed their troubles were over, and that after recuperating they could go back, bring in their furs, dispose of them handsomely, and reap the reward of all their privation and toil. Not so, however. Indeed, the worst of their trials was now to come. Before they comprehended the intention the Spanish official had seized their rifles and the men were locked up with only the commonest fare to relieve their suffering. Cruelty followed cruelty, but they believed it was the mistake of the minor officers, and appealed to the general in charge at San Diego, expecting an order from him for release. Instead of this they were marched under guard to San Diego, where each was confined in a separate room, frustrating their plan to recapture their arms and fight their way out. Pattie’s father presently became ill, and no amount of entreaty was sufficient to gain permission for the son to see him even for a moment. He died in his cell. After much argument and the intercession of some of the minor officers, Pattie was permitted liberty long enough to attend the funeral. At last the men were allowed to go back for the furs, which no doubt the wily general intended to confiscate, Pattie himself being retained as a hostage. But the furs had been ruined by a rise of the river. Smallpox then began to rage on the coast, and through this fact Pattie finally gained his freedom. Having with him a quantity of vaccine virus, he was able to barter skill in vaccinating the populace for liberty, though it was tardily and grudgingly granted. He was able, at length, to get away from California, and returned, broken in health and penniless, by way of the City of Mexico, to his old home near Cincinnati, after six years of extraordinary travel through the wildest portions of the Rocky Mountain region and the extreme Southwest.
The “Colob” Country, Southern Utah.
Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
In the year 1826, an afterwards famous personage appeared in the valley of the Colorado, on the Gila branch, being no less than Kit Carson,[[9]] one of the greatest scouts and trappers of all. At this time he was but seventeen years old, though in sagacity, knowledge, and skill soon the equal of any trapper in the field. In 1827, Ewing Young, another noted trapper, having been driven away from the Gila by the natives, organised a company of forty men to go back and punish them, which meant to kill all they could see, innocent or guilty. Carson was one of this party. They succeeded in killing fifteen of the offenders, after which slight diversion they went on down the stream, trapping it as they went, but finally, running short of provisions, they had to eat horses. Arriving among the Mohaves, they obtained food from them, and proceeded across to San Gabriel Mission, to which place after trapping up the Sacramento Valley, they again returned, in season to assist the Spaniards to reduce the natives around the settlement to submission. This was accomplished by the simple method of killing one-third of them.
[9] Life of Kit Carson, by Charles Burdett. There are several Lives by other biographers.