ying
loose from the shoulders, a shirt and breech-cloth, and a pair of long
boots, made large and loose in the Mexican style and showy with dyeing and
embroidery. These boots, very necessary to men who must ride through
thorns and bushes, were either drawn up so as to cover the thighs or
turned over from the knee downward, like the leg-covering of Rupert's
cavaliers. Many heads were bare, or merely shielded by wreaths of grasses
and leaves, the greenery contrasting fantastically with the unkempt hair
and fierce faces, but producing at a distance an effect which was not
without sylvan grace.

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 house