Cold weather came on, and the Spaniards went into winter quarters. A beautiful Indian girl-chief in that region came bringing pearls and gems to the Spanish chieftain. But he demanded gold. When she understood this she sent men to a far country for the yellow metal he desired so eagerly. De Soto and his men now rejoiced, for they thought they had found the object of their long and painful search. When the red messengers returned the stuff proved not to be gold. It must have been copper ore or “fool’s gold.” During the second year of their long march, the Spaniards were led southward to Mabila, which is believed to have stood on the shore of Mobile Bay. This was a huge fortress, the greatest native town the white men had yet seen. Within an immense stockade or wall of tree trunks on end stood a number of houses each of which would hold hundreds of Indians. Tuscaloosa, the Mabile chief, set a trap for the Spaniards. The battle which took place here was the worst of all. The [Illustration: DE SOTO ON THE BANK OF THE MISSISSIPPI _From the drawing by H. L. Stephens_] Spaniards lost seventy men and forty horses. Then they set fire to the Indians’ houses, and the savages perished in the flames. De Soto’s men were heartily sick of fighting. They also despaired of finding gold in southern swamps. The governor heard here that they were plotting to desert him at Mabila and return by boat to Havana. So, instead of waiting for a ship to come from Cuba, he ordered them to march farther into the wilderness. As the prospect of finding gold became more desperate, De Soto seemed to grow more cruel. Indians were beheaded for small offenses; friendly scouts were tortured and sent back with insulting messages to their chiefs. The farther west the Spaniards went the more bitterly the natives fought and the more successful they were in battle. In one place the Indians burned nearly all the Spaniards’ hogs, and feasted on roast pork for many days. After terrible wanderings, the few remaining Spaniards came to a wide stream at Chickasaw Bluff, a few miles above the present city of Vicksburg. Though it is often stated that De Soto discovered the Mississippi, he was not the first Spaniard to see that wide and muddy stream. The Great River meant nothing to him. As he wandered up and down its banks he contracted malarial fever and died miserably. Faithful friends placed the body in his heavy armor and wrapped that in blankets weighted with sand. Then, on a dark night, they paddled out into the middle of the stream and sank it in a hundred feet of water, where the Indians could not find it and wreak their revenge upon De Soto’s remains. His followers attempted to go farther west but became discouraged and descended the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, ENGLAND’S FIRST GREAT SAILOR