Fortunately for the Spaniards, they were prepared with armor sufficient to withstand these crude weapons, for each soldier wore a coat of steel, a helmet and breastplate, and carried a shield of metal. Their horses were also protected with coats of steel. With their biscayan lances, broadswords, arquebuses, crossbows, and a small piece of artillery, the Spaniards felt secure against the primitive implements of the savage. Though thus secured against savage attack, DeSoto and his men soon learned that theirs was not a primrose path through the American wilds. The Indian proved to be a terrible antagonist with his foxy stratagem and his primitive method of warfare. These pampered sons of Spain, many of whom had been petted and nourished in mansions and in palaces of luxury, had daily to fight for their lives on the invaded territory of the red man, who would engage the Spaniards at points of the greatest advantage to themselves, and who enjoyed every possible advantage because of their familiarity with the surroundings. But for Ortiz, the expedition might have perished before it had quitted the present territory of Georgia. The Spaniards never knew when to expect an assault. Often at the most unconjectured time, they would receive a shower of arrows, noiseless in their flight, and coming from unseen sources. Every hour, by day and by night, they were kept in suspense, and even intervals of quietude became ominous of accumulating trouble. Sometimes from the summits of rocky hills in front an attack would be made; sometimes one flank assailed, then both simultaneously; while not infrequently the rear would be attacked by overwhelming numbers of shrieking, yelling demons, whose painted, naked bodies and fierce demonstrations would create pandemonium. There was little in tragic scenes like these to hearten the tender gentry of Spain. By dint of rare discipline, maneuver, powder and ball, of which the Indians knew nothing, and an intensely common interest of protection which welded the Spaniards together, they invariably prevailed, but never were shrewder, more stubborn or fiercer foes encountered, than these raw savages of the American forest. Though duly provided with workers in metal with their pots and ladles for the refinement of gold, the troops found no use for them after months of a straggling march through the woods of the South. The alluring vision of the invading Spaniard of the abundance of gold in the retreats of the American wilds, was gradually dispelled and vastly counterbalanced by the hourly peril that menaced. That the spirit of the troops so long survived conditions like these, shows the stern stuff of which the Spanish soldier of that time was made. His love of gold was consuming, while his spirit of adventure was the most audacious. These, combined with the necessary coherence in common defense, made DeSoto's band well nigh invincible.