Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/50

PKEEST WALKED ,4,500 MILES. S.) Oe was not like the king's runners we read of in tlic Good Book who were promised great rewards for the first man who should reach another ruler with the king's message: some started out before they fully comprehended what their message was; others only half understood; but one of the messengers waited to comprehend all the desires and wishes of th^c king, andj although he wais lastj jret he had the message; aU the others were messengers wil^ciut a message. But Father Marcos knew what he was talking about; he had seen; it was not hearsay evi^ dence or what some one else had told him. Now, Father Marcos having arrived soon after the four men had told their story to the governor, and being very desirous of making new religious con-> quests among the Indians of Cibola, he thinking no doubt that the same thing would be enacted as was done in Peru, when Mendoza intimated that he was about to send out a reconnoitering party to test the truth of the four men's statement of the riches of the populous cities of Cibola, Father Marcos was made principal of the expedition, he being given tiie negro Stephen as guide and interpreter. It would make you smile to recite how the col- ored. man fooled the natives. He in some way became possessed of a medicine man^s outfit and played upon the credulity of the natives, but it was a case of "giye an inch and take an eU." He met with such kind treatment from the aborigines that, like some people of the present period, he could not stand prosperity. So he began to demand at every village ^privileges which were vicious and wrong; so at last when the