122 
The Colorado River 
tunity to maltreat and rob them. This, however, did not pre¬ 
vent Smith from returning again after a visit to the northern 
rendezvous. But while crossing the Colorado, the Mohaves, 
who had meanwhile been instigated to harass Americans by the 
Spaniards (so it is said), attacked the expedition, killing ten 
men and capturing everything. Smith escaped to be after¬ 
wards killed on the Cimarron by the Comanches. 
Pattie and his father again entered the Gila country in the 
autumn of 1827, with permission from the governor of New 
Mexico to trap. After they had gone down the Gila a con¬ 
siderable distance the party split up, each band going in dif¬ 
ferent directions, and after numerous adventures the Patties 
and their adherents arrived at the Colorado, where their horses 
were stampeded by the tribe living at the mouth of the Gila, 
the “Umeas.” They were left without a single animal, a most 
serious predicament in a wild country. The elder Pattie coun¬ 
selled pursuit on foot to recapture the horses or die in the at¬ 
tempt. But the effort was fruitless. They then made their 
way back to their camp, devoured their last morsel of meat, 
placed their guns on a raft, and swam the river to annihilate 
the village they saw on the opposite bank. The Yumas, how¬ 
ever, had anticipated this move, and the trappers found there 
only one poor old man, whom they spared. Setting fire to 
every hut in the village, except that of the old man, they had 
the small satisfaction of watching them burn. There was now 
no hope either of regaining the horses or of fighting the Yu¬ 
mas, so they devoted their attention to building canoes for 
the purpose of escaping by descending the Colorado. For 
this they possessed tools, trappers often having occasion to use 
a canoe in the prosecution of their work. They soon had fin¬ 
ished eight, dugouts undoubtedly, though Pattie does not say 
so, and they already had one which Pattie had made on the 
Gila. Uniting these by platforms in pairs they embarked upon 
them with all their furs and traps, leaving their saddles hidden 
on the bank. 
On the 9th of December (1827)^ they started, probably the 
‘ The reader may think I introduce too many year-dates but I have found most 
books so lacking in this regard that I prefer to err on the other side. 
