"I have used no force to detain Diego De Guzman. I shall use no force to compel him to depart. On the contrary I shall treat him as a son-in-law, with all honor and kindness, and shall do the same with any others of the strangers who may choose to remain with me. If for thus doing my duty you think proper to lay waste my lands and slay my people, you can do so. The power is in your hands." It would seem that this manly reply disarmed Moscoso, for the Spanish army continued its journey, leaving Guzman behind. Onward and still onward the weary men pressed, wading morasses, forcing their way through tangled forests, crossing rivers on rafts; now hungry and now thirsty, again enjoying abundance; sometimes encountering hostility from the natives, when they took fearful vengeance, applying the torch to their villages; and again enjoying the hospitality of the natives, until having traversed a region of about three hundred miles in breadth, they supposed they had reached the confines of Mexico. They had no suitable interpreters with them. The most contrary impressions were received from the attempts they made to obtain intelligence from the Indians. Lured by false hopes, they wandered about here and there, ever disappointed in their hopes of finding the white men. Entering a vast uninhabited region, they found their food exhausted, and but for the roots and herbs they dug up, would have perished from hunger. The Spaniards were in despair. They were lost in savage wilds, surrounded by a barbarous and hostile people, with whom, for want of an interpreter, they could hold no intelligible communication. They had now been wandering in these bewildering mazes for three months. Mountains were rising before them; dense forests were around. They had probably reached the hunting-grounds of the Pawnees and Comanches. It was the month of October; winter would soon be upon them. A council of war was called, and after much agitating debate, it was at length decided, as the only refuge from perishing in the wilderness, to retrace their steps to the Mississippi. Forlorn, indeed, were their prospects now. They had made no attempt to conciliate the natives through whose provinces they had passed, and they could expect to encounter only hostility upon every step of their return. The country also, devastated in their advance, could afford but little succor in their retreat. Their worst fears were realized. Though they made forced marches, often with weary feet, late into the night, they were constantly falling into ambuscades, and had an almost incessant battle to fight.