subjection, and had employed him in various servile labors, but had in other respects used him well.

The name of this chieftain was Mucozo, which, being interpreted, means the Little Bear. When he heard that a party of white men had landed on the coast, he determined to send a delegation down to meet them and to offer peace. So he organized a troop of eighty Indians, and putting John Ortiz

at the head of them sent them forth.

In the mean time De Soto had heard that Ortiz was still alive, and had learned in some way where he was, and he determined to send for him. So he sent off a detachment of sixty horsemen, under the command of a proper officer, to proceed to Little Bear's village and find Ortiz if he could, and bring him in to the camp. The Indian troop sent by Little Bear and the squadron of horse sent by De Soto met each other on the way.

The Indians were terrified at the sight of the horses and fled, advising Ortiz to fly with them. He, however, would not do so, but stood his ground until the Spaniards came up.

Now Ortiz had been so long in the Indian country that he had well nigh forgotton his own language, and being dressed like the Indians, or rather being, like them, not dressed at all, for

they wore nothing but feathers in their hair and a very simple garment about the loins-he was not to be distinguished from one of the savages. And the Spaniards being greatly excited at the sight of the Indians, rushed on toward them as soon as they saw them with so much impetuosity, in spite of all the efforts of their commander to restrain them, that Ortiz would have been run over and killed if he had not had the presence of mind to make the sign of the cross. He did this by holding up his bow and placing his arm across it near one end. This signal arrested the attention of the foremost of the troop, so that they wheeled their horses in time to save him.

They immediately asked him if he was John Ortiz, and on his answering that he was, one of them took him up behind him on his horse, and the whole troop returned with him to De Soto's camp.

THE STORY OF ORTIZ.

The account which Ortiz gave of himself, when he had so far recovered his recollection of his mother tongue as to be able to tell his story, was quite singular. He said that he came to the country with the expedition of Narvaez ten years before. He did not land with the other

troops, but remained with those who were left on board the vessels, in order that they might navigate them along the coast. This party had orders to watch at every place where they could approach the shore for signals from the land party, and on one occasion, when they approached the land in this way, they saw a company of Indians on the beach, making signals for them to come on shore: This the commander of the ships at first refused to do, but the Indians produced something white which had the appearance of a letter, and after waving it in the air so as to call the attention of those on board the vessels to it, they put it into a cleft at the end of a reed, and set the reed up in the sand on the beach. They then withdrew into the thickets.

The captain thought that the paper must be a letter from the party on the land, and that it had been given to the Indians to deliver to those on board the ships, and he finally concluded to send a boat on shore to get it. Four persons went in this boat, and among them was Ortiz himself. Ortiz was then a young man of about eighteen years of age.

The moment that the four boatmen set foot upon the beach the Indians rushed down out of the thickets, made them all prisoners, and carried

them into the interior to Hirrihigua, the chieftain whose mother Narvaez had caused to be devoured by bloodhounds. It seems that the Indians had been sent by Hirrihigua to make the capture, in order that he might have the means of revenging the brutal outrage which his family had suffered.

Accordingly, after keeping the prisoners for a short time, to exhibit them in the neighborhood and exult over them, he brought them out one after another into an inclosure arranged for the purpose, and exposed them there to be shot at with arrows and javelins by any of the tribe that chose to join in the work, until they were dead.

When three of them had been disposed of in this way, and the turn of Ortiz came, two of the women—the wife and daughter of the chief-were moved to pity by his youthful appearance, and begged for his life. "This is only a boy," said they. "Do not kill him." Their intercessions prevailed. Ortiz was spared, and soon afterward he made his escape from Hirrihigua to another chieftain, who received and protected him, and kept him in his household from that day forward as a slave.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN.

De Soto remained three or four weeks at his

encampment near the bay, in order to rest and recruit his men and his horses after their voyage, and also to make preparations for his proposed campaign in the interior. He made diligent effort to open communications with the chiefs of the tribes inhabiting that neighborhood, in order to obtain intelligence in respect to the country. Ortiz could give him very little information, as he had been kept closely confined in one place during his captivity, and had been employed wholly in menial occupations. He, however, rendered good service as an interpreter.

De Soto was not very successful in cultivating a good understanding with the chiefs. They had had too much experience of the treachery and cruelty of the Spaniards in the visits which former adventurers had paid them to place any confidence in his promises, and though they sometimes pretended to be friendly, their real wish was to trammel the movements of the hated invaders in every possible way, and in the end either to eject them from the country or destroy them. The consequence was that skirmishes and fights were continually breaking out between the Spaniards and the Indians, by which the former were much harassed. The great aim of the Indians was to draw