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 houses burned; they might eat a few cattle, if they were hungry:  there were plenty of cattle, and Apaches must live.  And if they should yell at a train or so and stampede the loose mules, he had no objection.  But no slaughtering; he wanted them to be merciful:  just make a pretence of harrying in Bernalillo; nothing more.

The chiefs turned their ill-favored countenances on each other, and talked for a while in their own language.  Then, looking at Coronado, they grunted, nodded, and sat in silence, waiting for his terms.

“Send that boy away,” said the Mexican, pointing to a youth of twelve or fourteen, better dressed than most Apache urchins, who had joined the little circle.

“It is my son,” replied Manga Colorada.  “He is learning to be a chief.”

The boy stood upright, facing the group with dignity, a handsomer youth than is often seen among his people.  Coronado, who had something of the artist in him, was so interested in noting the lad’s regular features and tragic firmness of expression, that for a moment he forgot his projects.  Manga Colorada, mistaking the cause of his silence, encouraged him to proceed.

“My son does not speak Spanish,” he said.  “He will not understand.”

“You know what money is?” inquired the Mexican.

“Yes, we know,” grunted the chief.

“You can buy clothes and arms with it in the villages, and aguardiente.”

Another grunt of assent and satisfaction.

“Three hundred piastres,” said Coronado.

The chiefs consulted in their own tongue, and then replied, “The way is long.”

“How much?”

Manga Colorada held up five fingers.

“Five hundred?”

A unanimous grunt.

“It is all I have,” said Coronado.

The chiefs made no reply.

Coronado rose, walked to his horse, took two small packages out of his saddle-bags and slipped them slily into his boots, and then carried the bags to where the chiefs sat in council.  There he held them up and rolled out five rouleaux, each containing a hundred Mexican dollars.  The Indians tore open the envelopes, stared at the broad pieces, fingered them, jingled them together, and uttered grunts of amazement and joy.  Probably they had never before seen so much money, at least not in their own possession.  Coronado was hardly less content; for while he had received a thousand dollars to bring about this understanding, he had risked but seven hundred with him, and of these he had saved two hundred.