Fray Juan de Padilla, the youngest of the four missionaries, and the first martyr on the soil of Kansas, was a native of Andalusia, Spain, and a man of great energy both mentally and physically. He himself made no mean record as a foot-traveller, and our professional pedestrians would stand aghast if confronted with the thousands of desert miles this tireless apostle to the Indians plodded in the wild Southwest. He had already held very important positions in Mexico, but gladly gave up his honors to become a poor missionary among the savages of the unknown north. Having walked with Coronado's force from Mexico across the deserts to the Seven Cities of Cibola, Fray Padilla trudged to Moqui with Pedro de Tobar and his squad of twenty men. Then plodding back to Zuni, he soon set forth again with Hernando de Alvarado and twenty men, on a tramp of about a thousand miles more. He was in this expedition with the first Europeans that ever saw the lofty town of Acoma, the Rio Grande within what is now New Mexico, and the great pueblo of Pecos. In the spring of 1541, when the handful of an army was all gathered at Bernalillo, and Coronado set out to chase the fatal golden myth of the Quivira, Fray Padilla accompanied him. In that march of one hundred and four days across the barren plains before they reached the Quiviras in northeastern Kansas, the explorers suffered tortures for water and sometimes for food. The treacherous guide misled them, and they wandered long in a circle, covering a fearful distance,--probably over fifteen hundred miles. The expedition was mounted, but in those days the humble _padres_ went afoot. Finding only disappointment, the explorers marched all the way back to Bernalillo,--though by a less circuitous route,--and Fray Padilla came with them.