The justice of this criticism was unappreciated by Patterson’s friends. He was provided with comfortable quarters in the jailer’s room, and accorded the freedom of the prison yard. His friends supplied him with whiskey and visited him daily to aid in drinking it. No prisoner of state could have been treated with greater consideration. The gamblers and soiled doves gave him constant assurance of sympathy. Even the poor wretch he had scalped at Portland wrote to ascertain if she could do anything for “poor Ferd.” Pinkham’s friends, enraged at the course pursued by the officers of justice, began to talk of taking Patterson’s case into their own hands. The example of the Montana Vigilantes excited their emulation. When they finally effected an organization, several of Patterson’s friends gained admission to it by professing friendship for its object. They imparted its designs and progress to others. Patterson was informed of every movement, and counselled his adherents what measures to oppose to the conspiracy against his life. Meantime the Vigilantes appointed a meeting for the purpose of maturing their plans, to be held at a late hour of the evening, in a ravine across Moore’s Creek, a short distance from the city. Patterson having been apprised of it, was anxious to obtain personal knowledge of its designs. So when the hour arrived, representing in his own person one of the deputy sheriffs with the consent of the sheriff, he placed himself at the head of an armed band of six men as desperate as himself, and stole unperceived from the jail-yard to a point within three hundred yards of the rendezvous. Here they separated. Each with a cocked revolver approached at different points, as near the assemblage as safety would permit. Three hundred or more were already on the ground, and others constantly arriving. It was a large gathering for the occasion,—and the occasion was not one to inspire with pleasurable emotions the mind or heart of the wretch who was risking his life to gratify his curiosity. Nevertheless, he crept forward till within seventy yards of the chairman’s stand.