Villagrá, upon reaching San Juan, found Oñate gone to Zuñi, there to await Zaldívar and the thirty soldiers with whom he hoped to realize his dream of reaching the western sea. Consequently he hastened on unattended to report to the general his success in bringing back the deserters from the army. Like his chief, Villagrá was met at Ácoma with friendly entreaty by Zutucapán, who, however, was something too persistent in his questioning, so that the Spanish captain took alarm and apparently did not leave his mount. Assuring the cacique that he was merely the _avant-courier_ of a very large Spanish force hastening to join the general, he managed, though pursued, to escape. Toward nightfall, man and beast faltered with exhaustion. Throwing himself on the bare ground, Villagrá slept, but awakened while it still was dark to find himself covered by a blanket of snow. The day must not betray him. Mounting his tired horse, he started forward. Only a short distance farther on both fell into a deep pit prepared by the Ácomas for unwary strangers, well screened by brush and now also hidden by the falling snow. Half stunned, Villagrá crawled out, but his horse was dead. For four days thereafter Villagrá tells us he staggered on, with a favorite dog for sole companion, foodless and waterless, since the snow had ceased and only the arid earth was visible. At length he laid himself down to die, when by rare good fortune he was discovered by some of Oñate’s men searching for lost horses. Carried to camp, and nursed to health again, he played his heroic part only a little later in the assault and capture of the great Sky City. By so narrow a margin has posterity inherited his priceless history of the great adventure. Don Vicente de Zaldívar, having arrived at San Juan, took over the command of the colony as ordered. On the 18th of November, his brother Don Juan started for his western journey, with thirty soldiers, to join Oñate at Zuñi. Meanwhile the bitter disappointment of Zutucapán, foiled by Oñate and again by Villagrá, had had time to ferment into more diabolical designs against the next coming of white usurpers of the land. As Zaldívar approached Ácoma, he was met by the cacique and his confederates in friendliest guise. They seem not only to have urged the Spaniards to visit their sky city but to have promised ample provisions for the further journey. Quite unsuspicious of the evil in their hearts, Don Juan with sixteen companions went up the steep footway in the rocks. The others remained below with the horses. Still off-guard, Don Juan allowed his men to separate on the mesa-top, beguiled by plausible invitations to one or another point of interest.