The active brain of this gallant explorer was busy with perfecting his plans for the founding of a settlement in the wilderness. He carefully selected the officers and crews who were to take charge of the vessels which he proposed to build. He chose those who were to remain with him upon the banks of the rolling Mississippi. Some were set to work cutting timbers; others collected gum from pine trees; while still others put up forges and made nails from bits of iron which they had carried with them. All were busy and active in preparation both for the stay of those who were to colonize this country, and the departure of those who were to leave. Yet the fever was in the veins of our venturesome Castilian and his customary vigor was slackened. De Soto grew so weakened that he had to be carried to his tent and was delirious. While upon the Red River, one of the malaria-breeding mosquitoes had driven his tiny sting into the flesh of the brave adventurer. He had sickened from the poison, yet refused to give up to the disease, until the fever was raging in his veins. He now sank rapidly. Yellow fever had doubtless assailed him, and his system, already weakened by much exposure and by shock of battle, could not throw off the inroads of the dread disease. He sank day by day. When he knew that the end was approaching, he called his officers together, asked their forgiveness for any wrong which he might have done them, and named Moscoso de Alvarado to succeed him to the command of the expedition. Officers and bluff soldiers all swore allegiance to their new leader. The dying explorer begged his followers to carry out his ideas in the settlement of the vast country of Florida, and this they promised him that they would do. One warm, sultry morning, when the mocking bird was trilling a beautiful melody from an overhanging sycamore, which jutted over the bank of the slow-moving, yet turbulent Mississippi, the spirit of the bold adventurer departed. His hardened and sunburned companions were dewy-eyed when they gazed upon the still countenance of their friend and kindly adviser. They wrapped him in a sheet, rowed him to the center of the swirling stream, dropped him overboard, and left him amidst the silence of the great, wild country where the “golden man” had never been found.