Yet on, on, they toiled wearily, ever hoping to find the gold which never came to view. They finally approached a native village which was filled with warriors of mettle, for they were furiously attacked. A shower of arrows fell among them, but, little heeding these missiles, the Spaniards discharged their guns, and, rushing upon the patriotic Indians, easily routed them. Many of the poor redskins took refuge in a pond and swam out so that they could not be reached. The Spaniards immediately surrounded the water and awaited developments. A historian of the period says: “Nine hundred Indians took to the pond, and, all day long, continued to swim around shouting defiance and mounting on each other’s shoulders in order to shoot their arrows. Night came, and not one had surrendered; midnight, and still not one. At ten o’clock the next day, after twenty-four hours in the water, some two hundred came out, all stiff and cold. Others followed. The last seven would not give up, but were dragged out unconscious by the Spaniards, who swam in after them, when they had been thirty hours in the water, without touching bottom. Then the humane invaders exerted themselves to warm and restore to life these unfortunate people.” In spite of this kind treatment, the men from Castile put irons on many of these natives, and took them along with them, so that they would have slaves to transport their baggage, pound their corn, and serve them when in camp. A soldier, who has written of this journey, says that, upon one occasion, the enslaved prisoners rose against their masters and tried to massacre them, but the Spaniards crushed this attempt, brought the helpless Indians to the village square, and caused them to be hacked to pieces by their halberdiers, or swordsmen. You can readily see that these invaders were making no happy impression upon simple-minded Americans. [Illustration: DE SOTO IN THE FLORIDA WILDERNESS.] The Spaniards were now in the country of Apalachee, which was then, as it is to-day, a land of agriculture, with well-tilled fields of corn, of pumpkins and beans, and with a farm-loving population of red men. The Castilians seized all the provisions which they needed for their journey, and, when the Indians objected, slew them mercilessly, but not without the loss of many of their own people.