l 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.

But he had already decided that among these hostile, roving,
buffalo-living Sioux and other Indians of the plains should be his field
of labor; and when the Spanish evacuated New Mexico, he remained. With
him were the soldier Andres Docampo, two young men of Michuacan, Mexico,
named Lucas and Sebastian, called the Donados, and a few Mexican Indian
boys. In the fall of 1542 the little party left Bernalillo on its
thousand-mile march. Andres alone was mounted; the missionary and the
Indian boys trudged along the sandy way afoot. They went by way of the
pueblo of Pecos, thence into and across a corner of what is now
Colorado, and nearly the whole length of the great State of Kansas. At
last, after a long and weary tramp, they reached the temporary
lodge-villages of the Quivira Indians. Coronado had planted a large
cross at one of these villages, and here Fray Padilla established his
mission. In time the hostile savages lost