92 KANSAS CUT REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



which it should be specified that he was ill at the time. M. Riu said that he 

 would send for the surgeon who had attended him. Dr. Conde came immediately. 

 He had been called in by Barrera, who complained of sickness, of suffering from 

 oppession of the chest, and asked to be bled; and as the patient insisted he had 

 bled him accordingly; but there was no symptom whatever of fever. After this 

 statement the storekeeper left the chamber, saying he would get ready to embark, 

 meanwhile St. Ange had quietly given orders to his entire troop to assemble in 

 the barrack-room. 



Half an hour later there came a negro servant of the Spanish Captain to say 

 that five or six soldiers were at his house, and wished to see him; but both com- 

 mandants thought it better that the soldiers should come to the Government 

 Hall, and the negro was directed to notify them accordingly. P'earing that insult 

 and personal violence to M. Riu was intended, St. Ange ordered de Belestre to 

 put the French guard under arms immediately, and station them in an adjoining 

 room with instructions to be ready to act at a moment's warning. The command 

 was obeyed on the spot as the guard was within call. The Spanish soldiers hav- 

 ing come, for prudential reasons only three were admitted, and the others required 

 to remain outside on the steps. After various remarks Fereco, the spokesman of 

 the trio, asked who commanded the boat, the sergeant, or the storekeeper? On 

 being informed it was the sergeant, after some words had passed, he said, the 

 boat should not leave to-day, and that when it did the storekeeper must be on 

 board, as he had started with it from the mouth of the Missouri. He proceeded 

 to say further that neither he nor his comrades were willing to acknowledge M. 

 Riu as their commander, or obey his orders, and that they would not have or 

 recognize any one as their superior officer, except Lieutenant Ferdinando Gomez. 

 After further disrespectful remarks and insubordinate conduct, the three left the 

 chamber, and all six started for the boat to take their departure for Fort St. 

 Charles, as St. Ange and M. Riu supposed. 



Not a great while afterwards, the two commandants, still together in the 

 council chamber, were startled by the discharge of a swivel. Montardy was im- 

 mediately dispatched for the storekeeper. He found him already in the boat and 

 two soldiers holding him by the collar. He notified Sergeant and Barrera that 

 St. Ange wished to see them, but the former replied that the soldiers would not 

 allow the storekeeper to go ashore. One Boyer, who had come up with the 

 Spanish expedition as an employe and been substituted for another when the de- 

 tachment left Fort St. Charles, was standing on the bank near the stone to which 

 the vessel was moored. He was ordered to cast off the rope and come aboaid 

 immediately; and before Montardy could run up the hill to the government house 

 St. Ange and M. Riu, who had come out and were standing on the steps, saw 

 the boat push out into the river, turn her prow down stream, and the crew shout- 

 ing " to the city, " "to New Orleans, " and discharging their guns, whose balls 

 rattling against the cabins alarmed the villagers, begin to row lustily with the cur- 

 rent. 



As was reported by Boyer, who subsequently made his escape, some nine or 



