The only weapons were iron-tipped lances eight or nine feet long, thick and strong bows of three or three and a half feet, and quivers of arrows slung across the thigh or over the shoulder. The Apaches make little use of firearms, being too lazy or too stupid to keep them in order, and finding it difficult to get ammunition. But so long as they have to fight only the unwarlike Mexicans, they are none the worse for this lack. The Mexicans fly at the first yell; the Apaches ride after them and lance them in the back; clumsy _escopetos_ drop loaded from the hands of dying cowards. Such are the battles of New Mexico. It is only when these red-skinned Tartars meet Americans or such high-spirited Indians as the Opates that they have to recoil before gunpowder. [Footnote: Since those times the Apaches have learned to use firearms.] The fact that Coronado dared ride into this camp of thieving assassins shows what risks he could force himself to run when he thought it necessary. He was not physically a very brave man; he had no pugnacity and no adventurous love of danger for its own sake; but when he was resolved on an enterprise, he could go through with it. There was a rest of several hours. The rancheros fed the horses on corn which they had brought in small sacks. Texas Smith kept watch, suffered no Apache to touch him, had his pistols always cocked, and stood ready to sell life at the highest price. Coronado walked deliberately to a retired spot with Manga Colorada, Delgadito, and two other chiefs, and made known his propositions. What he desired was that the Apaches should quit their present post immediately, perform a forced march of a hundred and forty miles or so to the southwest, place themselves across the overland trail through Bernalillo, and do something to alarm people. No great harm; he did not want men murdered nor houses burned; they might eat a few cattle, if they were hungry: there were plenty of cattle, and Apaches must live. And if they should yell at a train or so and stampede the loose mules, he had no objection. But no slaughtering; he wanted them to be merciful: just make a pretence of harrying in Bernalillo; nothing more. The chiefs turned their ill-favored countenances on each other, and talked for a while in their own language. Then, looking at Coronado, they grunted, nodded, and sat in silence, waiting for his terms. "Send that boy away," said the Mexican, pointing to a youth of twelve or fourteen, better dressed than most Apache urchins, who had joined the little circle. "It is my son," replied Manga Colorada. "He is learning to be a chief." The boy stood upright, facing the group with dignity, a handsomer youth than is often seen among his people. Coronado, who had something of the artist in him, was so interested in noting the lad's regular features and tragic firmness of expression, that for a moment he forgot his projects. Manga Colorada, mistaking the cause of his silence, encouraged him to proceed.