oung
girls regarded Cousin Pierre as a hero, especially when they learned
that the bearskin on the floor of their palmetto hut had but a few
months ago been the coat of a live black bear. It had been caught
feasting in the maize-fields of the Indians, by their cousin and another
youth, and shot with a crossbow bolt by Pierre. They thought the roast
corn and stewed clams of their first meal ashore the most delicious food
they had ever tasted, and the three-cornered enclosure in the forest
with the wilderness all about it, the most wonderful place they had
seen.

Little did these innocent folk imagine what was brewing in Spain. The
raid of French pirates upon the Jamaican coast had promptly been
reported by the Adelantado of that island. Spanish spies at the French
court had carefully noted the movements of Coligny and Ribault. Pedro
Menendez de Avila, raising money and men in his native province of
Asturia in Spain for the conquest of all Florida, learned with horror
and indignation that its virgin soil had already been polluted by
heretic Frenchmen.

Menendez had in that very year gained permission from the King of Spain
to conquer and convert this land at his own cost. In return he was to
have free trade with the whole Spanish empire, and the title of
Adelantado or governor of Florida for life--absolute power over all of
America north of Mexico, for Spain had never recognized any right of
France or England in the region discovered by Cabot, Cartier, Verrazzano
or others. Menendez was allowed three years for his tremendous task. He
was to take with him five hundred men and as many slaves, a suitable
supply of horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, and provisions, and sixteen
priests, four of whom were to be Jesuits. He had also to find ships to
convey this great expedition.

But Menendez had been playing for big stakes all his life. He was only
ten years old when he ran away and went to sea on a Barbary pirate ship.
While yet a lad he was captain of a ship of his own, fighting pirates
and French privateers. He had served in the West Indies and he had
commanded fleets. King Philip had never really understood the enormous
possibilities of Florida until Menendez explained them to him. The soil
was fertile, the climate good, there might be valuable mines, and there
were above all countless heathen whom it was the deepest desire of
Menendez to convert to the true faith. In this last statement he was as
sincere as he was in the oth