The Spaniards expected to find gold here, but there was hardly any gold in all the village. They did find a little corn and enough food to keep them from dying; but even with this they were little better off than before. The Indians were their enemies, and whenever a Spaniard walked away from the village he was sure to be killed with an arrow. Even when the Spaniards led their horses to water, they were shot at by the Indians, who were hidden behind trees. At last things became so bad that the Spaniards had to go back to their boats by the sea. It was a hard march. They could only get food from the Indians by fighting for it, and many Spaniards were shot, and many others fell sick and died from the bad water in the swamps. They had to go on, because the Indians would kill any who stayed behind. So they marched, and marched, and marched, day after day, and day after day, losing men all the time, until at last they reached the great sea.

But it wasn't Tampa Bay, where they had left their ships many weeks before, nor was the coast like any they had ever seen before. There was no life anywhere on all the great water, and there was no human being on all the miles of hot, white sand that stretched away as far as the eye could see. The soldiers lost their courage. "We shall never get home," they cried in despair. "We shall die on this terrible sea-coast," and some of the great, strong, bearded men threw themselves on the sands and cried as though their hearts would break.

Well, after a while they picked up courage. No matter how bad things look, a brave man never gives up hope. They knew that they were hundreds of miles west of Tampa Bay, but they remembered that there were some few Spaniards living near the place where they were. So De Vaca and the others made up their minds to build boats in which they might sail to the other Spaniards. Well, it is not easy to build ships when you have no sails, and no tools, and no pitch, and no ropes; but with patience you can do almost anything. So the Spaniards cut down trees for wood, made rope out of the hair of their horses' tails and manes, and used their shirts for sails. Month after month they worked, living on horse-meat and shell-fish and a little corn which they took from the Indians.

At last the boats were finished and they sailed away. Up and down the coast they went, always hunting for the Spaniards who lived nearby, and all the time things grew worse and worse with them. They were hungry and sick and frozen to the bone. For days the sun beat down on them, burning their skin, and then the cold shock gave them chills and fever. At last a great storm came, that drove their boats apart and threw them up against the rocks.

The boat on which De Vaca sailed landed on a little island, and the little band of soldiers would surely have died of hunger if the Indians had not been very kind. The Indians built large fires for the half-drowned men, and gave them hot food and drink, and when some other boats appeared like little specks far away in the distance, they threw more wood on the fires so that the smoke would rise in clouds and guide these ships also to the shore.

Here the tired Spaniards stayed for many months; but most of them did not live long. One after another they died, until only De Vaca and three others were alive. These four were all who were left of the bold men who had sailed for Florida a year before.

But the troubles of the brave De Vaca and his three tired men were not yet over. They could not stay long on the island with the good Indians, so one fine morning they said good-by to their new friends, and made their way to the West. It is a great wonder to me that they did not all die, for their troubles and dangers were great. Sometimes the Indians were kind to them, and gave them food and a place to sleep; but often they were very cruel, and once they kept De Vaca and his men locked up, and made them work as slaves.

You can imagine, perhaps, how hard it was for Cabeza de Vaca, who was a noble and a great man in his own country, to have to be a slave in a little Indian village. In Spain there were always people to wait on him, and whenever he wanted anything, he called and a servant came to ask what he wanted. But here in the little Indian village, where all the people were half naked, he had to work in the fields and dig, and cut wood and carry water, and do whatever else his master told him. Yet, I wonder, did De Vaca ever think of the thousands of Indians who had been made slaves by the Spaniards? Slavery is always wrong, and it was just as wrong to have Indian slaves as to have black slaves, or white slaves, or slaves of any kind.

So this great noble had to work for the Indians, but it was not for long. In a short time, the Indians saw that their slave was wiser than they were; he could teach them many things, and he could cure them when they were sick. So they were good to him and treated him as a chief, and after a while they let him and his three men go free.

Now that De Vaca and his three men were free, they started on their journey again. They went on day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. It was six years, six long years, that they walked on and on over deserts and thick forests, crossing deadly swamps and great, wide rivers. Often they had nothing to eat but nuts and roots, and as their clothes had worn out, they froze in winter and almost burned in summer. Many a time they wanted to lie down and die; but, being brave men, they never quite gave up hope. So they kept on. Then one day through the great forest they caught sight of the sea, and they were so happy that they wept tears of joy; and here they found that they were among their own people again. For the first time in six years they saw white faces once more; for the first time in six years they heard men speaking their own beautiful language, the Spanish language, which they loved so dearly.

You can well imagine how glad everybody was to see them. The tired but happy Cabeza de Vaca had to tell his story over and over again—all the wonderful adventures he had had since he landed in Tampa Bay, of the great rivers and swamps he had crossed, and of the sufferings he had passed through. And where do you think he was? He was far to the West, way out upon the Gulf of California, near the great Pacific Ocean. Cabeza de Vaca had walked across America.

It is true that De Vaca never found the things he came to America to find; for not always did men find gold and glory like Cortez and Pizarro. But De Vaca was happy and satisfied. When he sailed away back to his own home in Spain, he had no gold to take with him, but he was happy, happy to be with his own people once more, happy that he no longer had to be a slave to the Indians in America.