Constantly forced after this to be on their guard against plots and ambush, the explorers settled themselves for a time at Puaray (a little above the present city of Albuquerque), from which place excursions were made in various directions. On one of these, going westward, hoping to find Zuñi, they reached “a well-fortified pueblo named Ácoma, the best there is in Christendom.” It is described by their diarist as having five hundred houses of three and four storeys. This, then, is the next definite mention of the Peñol. Here they were told that with two days’ further march inland they would reach many pueblos and mines; consequently they did not linger at Ácoma or make any close examination of its people or their civilization. With the remainder of this expedition[46] we have no further connection beyond the fact that, when they had returned to San Bartolomé and reported that they had reluctantly left behind their two friars, the order of St. Francis at once bestirred itself to attempt their rescue. On the tenth of December, 1582, the endeavor was inaugurated under the leadership of Antonio de Espéjo, who offered to finance the whole undertaking. One of the soldiers in Espéjo’s company, Miguel Sanchez Valenciano, took with him his wife, Doña Casilda de Amaya, and their two young children, an astonishing example of courage on her part. She was in consequence the first white woman to enter New Mexico, the heart of the continent, a third of a century before the Puritans brought their families to Massachusetts. Espéjo knew full well about the death of Fray Santa María, for Bustamente and Gallegos, the two chroniclers, had already gone to Mexico City to report the whole story of their experiences.[47] There were rumors, too, that the other friars had been massacred since the soldiers left. But the uncertainty must be removed. It was, however, a full year later that Espéjo confirmed the truth of the massacres, when he reached Puaray. The avowed purpose of the _entrada_ was now accomplished. Espéjo, however, was not without other ambitions, and finding that his religious adviser, Padre Beltrán, was in sympathy with him, he decided to make further advances into adjacent lands. One of the routes took them as far as Jémez and thence to Ácoma. Espéjo’s narrative describes the fortress of Ácoma as follows: