After reaching their tracks, it was not long before the Spaniards fell in with a party of the Indians themselves, travelling by the river's side towards the Cordillera. Villariño, anxious to conciliate them in order to obtain their aid as he proceeded, was at first lavish in his presents to them, particularly of spirits and tobacco, which appeared to be the objects most in request among them. The more, however, they got, the more they wanted; and upon the first hesitation to comply with their unreasonable demands, they became as insolent as they were importunate. They conceived suspicions, too, of the real designs of the Spaniards in exploring those parts, and shrewdly enough guessed that some more permanent occupation of their country was projected--an idea in which they were confirmed by the lies of a vagabond who deserted to them from the boats, and whose first object, of course, was to sow the seeds of dissension between them and his countrymen, in order to facilitate his own escape. Although they dared not openly attack the Spaniards, they soon gave manifest proof of their determination to thwart the progress of the expedition by every means in their power. Riding on in advance of the boats they destroyed the pasturage along shore, and, hovering just out of the reach of danger to themselves, annoyed the party by all kinds of petty hostilities, and kept Villariño in continual alarm for the safety of his peons and cattle. This conduct on the part of the natives, added to the certainty now acquired, that the service would be one of much longer duration than had been contemplated, made Villariño pause before he proceeded farther, and finally, determined him to halt where he was till he could communicate with Carmen, and receive from thence such further supplies as would render him independent for the rest of the voyage. In passing the Choleechel, he had been much struck with a little peninsula, covered with rich pasturage, and easily made defensible against the Indians; and thither he now returned to await the further assistance he had applied for to his superior. By running a sort of palisade across the narrow isthmus which separated their position from the main, and landing their swivels from the boats, the Spaniards soon formed a little fortification[24], perfectly secure from any sudden attack on the part of the Indians, but of them they saw nothing more so long as they remained there.