The Colorado River 
114 
was a most eventful one in the history of the Colorado. Time 
appeared to be ripe for great journeys. The Mexicans out¬ 
side of California were more amiably inclined, and granted 
privileges to trappers in New Mexico. Two men who were 
among the first to push their way into New Mexico were 
James O. Pattie and his father, and the narrative of their ex¬ 
periences as told by the younger Pattie is one of the most 
thrilling and interesting books of Western adventure ever pub¬ 
lished.^ They had trapped on the Gila, or “Relay,” as they 
called it in 1825, and the next year they went back there with 
a party, trapping the Gila and its tributaries with gratifying 
success.^ Working their way down the Gila, they eventually 
reached its junction with what they called Red River, the Great 
Colorado. Following up the Colorado, probably the first 
white men to travel here since the time of Garces, they rode 
through a camp of Coco-Maricopas, who ran frightened away, 
and the Pattie party, passing them by as if they were mere 
chaff, camped four miles farther on, where they were visited 
by about one hundred, “all painted red in token of amity.” 
Farther up they entered the Mohave country. When they 
met some of the inhabitants they “marched directly through 
their village, the women and children screaming and hiding 
themselves in their huts.” Three miles above, the Patties 
camped, and a number of the Mohaves soon came to see them. 
They did not like the looks of the chief, who made signs that 
he wanted a horse as payment for the privilege of trapping in 
his domain. As the trappers recognised no rights on the part 
of the natives, they peremptorily refused, whereat the chief 
drew himself erect with a stern and fierce air and sent an 
arrow into a tree, at the same time “raising his hand to his 
mouth and making their peculiar yell.” The captain of the 
Pattie band replied by taking his gun and shooting the arrow 
in two. Driven out of the camp the following day, the chief 
^ The Personal Narrative of fames 0 . Pattie, of Kentucky, etc., edited by- 
Timothy Flint, Cincinnati, E. H. Flint, 1833. There is a copy in the Astor 
Library, New^ York. 
^ There were two classes of trappers, the free and those in the employ of some 
company. The Patties belonged to the former class. 
