Andrés Docampo and the boys made their escape at the time, but were soon captured by other Indians and kept as slaves for ten months. They were beaten and starved, and obliged to perform the most laborious and menial tasks. At last, after long planning and many unsuccessful attempts, they escaped from their barbarous captors. Then for more than eight years they wandered on foot, unarmed and alone, up and down the thirsty and inhospitable plains, enduring incredible privations and dangers. At last, after those thousands of footsore miles, they walked into the Mexican town of Tampico, on the great Gulf. They were received as those come back from the dead. We lack the details of that grim and matchless walk, but it is historically established. For nine years these poor fellows zigzagged the deserts afoot, beginning in northeastern Kansas and coming out far down in Mexico.
Sebastian died soon after his arrival in the Mexican State of Culiacan; the hardships of the trip had been too much for even his strong young body. His brother Lucas became a missionary among the Indians of Zacatecas, Mexico, and carried on his work among them for many years, dying at last in a ripe old age. As for the brave soldier Docampo, soon after his return to civilization he disappeared from view. Perhaps old Spanish documents may yet be discovered which will throw some light on his subsequent life and his fate.
III.
THE WAR OF THE ROCK.
Some of the most characteristic heroisms and hardships of the Pioneers in our domain cluster about the wondrous rock of Acoma, the strange sky-city of the Quéres[10] Pueblos. All the Pueblo cities were built in positions which Nature herself had fortified,—a necessity of the times, since they were surrounded by outnumbering hordes of the deadliest warriors in history; but Acoma was most secure of all. In the midst of a long valley, four miles wide, itself lined by almost insurmountable precipices, towers a lofty rock, whose top is about seventy acres in area, and whose walls, three hundred and fifty-seven feet high, are not merely perpendicular, but in most places even overhanging. Upon its summit was perched—and is to-day—the dizzy city of the Quéres. The few paths to the top—whereon a misstep will roll the victim to horrible death, hundreds of feet below—are by wild, precipitous clefts, at the head of which one determined man, with no other weapons than stones, could almost hold at bay an army.
This strange aerial town was first heard of by Europeans in 1539, when Fray Marcos, the discoverer of New Mexico, was told by the people of Cibola of the great rock fortress of Hákuque,—their name for Acoma, which the natives themselves called Ah'ko. In the following year Coronado visited it with his little army, and has left us an accurate account of its wonders. These first Europeans were well received there; and the superstitious natives, who had never seen a beard or a white face before, took the strangers for gods. But it was more than half a century later yet before the Spaniards sought a foothold there.
When Oñate entered New Mexico in 1598, he met no immediate resistance whatever; for his force of four hundred people, including two hundred men-at-arms, was large enough to awe the Indians. They were naturally hostile to these invaders of their domain; but finding themselves well treated by the strangers, and fearful of open war against these men with hard clothes, who killed from afar with their thunder-sticks, the Pueblos awaited results. The Quéres, Tigua, and Jemez branches formally submitted to Spanish rule, and took the oath of allegiance to the Crown by their representative men gathered at the pueblo of Guipuy (now Santo Domingo); as also did the Tanos, Picuries, Tehuas, and Taos, at a similar conference at the pueblo of San Juan, in September, 1598. At this ready submission Oñate was greatly encouraged; and he decided to visit all the principal pueblos in person, to make them securer subjects of his sovereign. He had founded already the first town in New Mexico and the second in the United States,—San Gabriel de los Españoles, where Chamita stands to-day. Before starting on this perilous journey, he despatched Juan de Zaldivar, his maestro de campo,[11] with fifty men to explore the vast, unknown plains to the east, and then to follow him.
Oñate and a small force left the lonely little Spanish colony,—more than a thousand miles from any other town of civilized men,—October 6, 1598. First he marched to the pueblos in the great plains of the Salt Lakes, east of the Manzano mountains,—a thirsty journey of more than two hundred miles. Then returning to the pueblo of Puaray (opposite the present Bernalillo), he turned westward. On the 27th of the same month he camped at the foot of the lofty cliffs of Acoma. The principales (chief men) of the town came down from the rock, and took the solemn pledge of allegiance to the Spanish Crown. They were thoroughly warned of the deep importance and meaning of this step, and that if they violated their oath they would be regarded and treated as rebels against his Majesty; but they fully pledged themselves to be faithful vassals. They were very friendly, and repeatedly invited the Spanish commander and his men to visit their sky-city. In truth, they had had spies at the conferences in Santo Domingo and San Juan, and had decided that the most dangerous man among the invaders was Oñate himself. If he could be slain, they thought the rest of the pale strangers might be easily routed.