They looked at me for a long time, so astonished that they were not able to speak or ask me questions. I told them to take me to their captain. So we went to a place half a league from there, where Diego de Alcaraz, their captain, was. After I spoke to him, he told me that he had quite a problem because he had not been able to capture Indians for many days. He did not know where to turn, because he and his men were beginning to suffer want and hunger. I told him that I had left Dorantes and Castillo behind, ten leagues from there, with many people who had brought us there. Then he sent three horsemen and fifty of the Indians they were bringing along, and the black man returned with them to guide them. I remained there and asked them to witness the month, day and year that I had arrived there, and the manner in which I arrived, and they did so. There are thirty leagues from this river to the Christian town called San Miguel, under the jurisdiction of the province called New Galicia.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

How I Sent for the Christians

Five days later Andrés Dorantes and Alonso del Castillo arrived with those who had gone for them. They brought along more than six hundred persons from that village, whom the Christians had forced to go up the mountain, where they were hiding. Those who had accompanied us to that place had taken the people out of the mountains and had handed them over to the Christians, and had sent away all the other people they had brought to that point. They came to where I was and Alcaraz asked me to send for the people from the villages on the riverbanks, who were hiding in the mountains in that area. He wanted me to ask them to bring us food,