greater commotion. It is the European with his hand of iron, shooting as he marches, while through the smoke of his gun rises, like the Spectre of the Brocken, a hideous companion he does not see. It is the dismal Shadow of Death, smiting right and left; and they walk on together, ever over corpses. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [25] _A Journal of Voyages and Travels in the Interior of North America_, by Daniel Williams Harmon. A. S. Barnes & Co. [26] _The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth._ Harper & Bros. [27] _The Middle Five._ [28] For the story of this exploration see _The Romance of the Colorado River_, by F. S. Dellenbaugh, and for further information on the natives of the Wilderness, see _The North Americans of Yesterday_, same author, and _The Indian of To-day_, by George Bird Grinnell. [29] _Journal of Jacob Fowler_, edited by Elliott Coues. [30] See _Voyages to the Arctic_, by Alexander Mackenzie, vol. i., p. xxxviii., and other early travellers in the West. [31] Catlin estimated 16,000,000. [Illustration] CHAPTER VI Lost in the Wilderness—Cabeza de Vaca, Great Medicine Man—The Wilderness Traversed—Spanish Slave Hunters—The Northern Mystery—The Monk and the Negro—The Great Coronado Expedition—The Settlement of New Mexico and the Pueblo Rebellion—California Missions—Escalante to Salt Lake Valley. As the harmless little snow-birds flit before the advance of winter's desolation, so a few hapless Spaniards cast up by the sea were forerunners in the Wilderness of the pressing swarms of Europe. These men were a small remnant of the expedition which Panfilo de Narvaez in 1527 led with rosy banners for the conquest of Florida, where a few years before Ponce de Leon, instead of his sought-for waters of perpetual youth, had found a shroud. Three years had barely passed when the same grave-garment was enwrapping Narvaez and his band, twining through one disaster after another, till the lonely, shimmering sea offered the only pathway from under the dark presence. Then it was a kingdom for a boat! Yet the staggering band had no tools, nails, cordage, skill; nothing in fact wherewith to prepare for the combat with Neptune. But the resolution of despair is great. They gathered spurs, bridle bits, all the iron they had, and made tools and nails. Spanish accoutrements were ever elaborate, so they were able to put their boats firmly together, and with shirts sewed one to another for sails, and their muscles fortified by the meat of the horses which they had eaten, whose manes and tails furnished ropes, at last in five large boats they coasted westward hoping valiantly to sight some camp, or settlement, of their fellow countrymen who, from the capital of the Aztecs, had been striving to penetrate the Northern Mystery.[32]