When he found them, they were greatly astonished. Their astonishment did
not lessen when he told them how he came to be where he was. He sent
Estevanico back to tell the rest of the party to come, and himself
remained to talk with Diego de Alcaraz, the leader of the Spanish
adventurers, and his three followers. They were slave-hunters, like the
other Spaniards. When, five days afterward Estevanico, Castillo and
Dorantes came on with an escort of several hundred Indians, all Cabeca's
determination and diplomacy were taxed to keep the slavers from making a
raid on the confiding natives then and there. To buy Alcaraz off cost
nearly all the bows, pouches, finely dressed skins, and other native
treasures he had gained by trading or received as gifts. In this
collection were five arrowheads of emerald or something very like that
stone. It was not in Cabeca de Vaca to break his word to people who
trusted him. He had suffered every sort of privation; he had traveled
more than ten thousand miles on foot in his six years among the Indians
of the Southwest; now he had lost most of his profit from that long
exile; but he went back to Spain with faith unbroken and honor clear as
a white diamond.
In May, 1536, he and his companions reached Culiacan in the territory of
Spain.
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