The captives were imprisoned over night in the mint, the children weeping, the women chattering angrily or humbly, and the men sulking. Next day the Hermosilleños began distributing the children among themselves, some families taking three and many two, while the adults were transferred to Pueblo Seri, placed in charge of a single keeper, and set to gathering fuel, etc. Naturally this unstable status did not long persist; “within two months they began to disappear, fleeing to their respective and native haunts, stealing and carrying with them the children from whom they had been separated”;[160] and, according to Espence, they committed “many murders on the Pitic and Guaimas roads” as they returned to Tiburon.[161] [160] Velasco, Noticias Estadisticas, p. 127. [161] Ibid., p. 170. While the Tiburon captives were escaping, the campaigning continued; and, in November, 1844, several Seri families, comprising 63 men, women, and children, who had been scavengering Rancho del Burro (“manteniéndose allí á merced de los desperdicios de dicho rancho”),[162] were captured and transported to the mint at Hermosillo, and soon afterward transferred to Pueblo Seri. During the same month a report came from Rancho del Pocito, on the Guaymas road, that Seri marauders (assumed to belong to the 16 families left on the island) had killed 10 head of stock; and a detachment of 15 cavalry was sent to inflict punishment. Early in December this party met a Seri force of over seventy warriors, including some of those captured on Tiburon and escaped from Pueblo Seri; after a battle of four hours the troops found their ammunition exhausted, several of their carbines out of order, and all but four or five of their horses winded; so that they were driven to parley with the Indians and to procure their surrender by pacific means—especially promises of good treatment.[163] Subsequently a municipal commission from Hermosillo reminded the defeated Seri of their surrender, and “three, four, or eight” of them presented themselves (“presentándose tres, cuatro ú ocho hombres”), and were probably added to the colony at Pueblo Seri. [162] Ibid., p. 128. [163] Ibid., p. 129. This naive recital is far from unique among the chronicles of conquest over the Seri. All of the records recount victories more or less brilliant, even when there are strong indications between lines that the Caucasians were outnumbered, outfought, forced from the field, and even driven into the protection of the pueblos. The Seri side of the story has never been told. Espence’s journal clearly indicates a complete circumnavigation of Tiburon, the second in history (that of Ugarte in 1721 being the first); and naturally some of his notes are of ethnologic value: