They were fine-looking fellows, with high aquiline features, the prominent cheek-bones and copper complexion of the red race, and a bold, martial, trooper-like expression, which was not without its wild good-humor and gayety.  One was dressed in a white woollen hunting-shirt belted around the waist, white woollen trousers or drawers reaching to the knee, and deerskin leggins and moccasins.  The other had the same costume, except that his drawers were brown and his hunting-shirt blue, while a blanket of red and black stripes drooped from his shoulders to his heels.  Their coarse black hair was done up behind in thick braids, and kept out of their faces by a broad band around the temples.  Each had a lance eight or ten feet long in his hand, and a bow and quiver slung at his waist-belt.  These men were Navajos (Na-va-hos).

Two jolly and impudent braves were these visitors.  They ate, smoked, lounged about, cracked jokes, and asked for liquor as independently as if the camp were a tavern.  Rebuffs only made them grin, and favors only led to further demands.  It was hard to say whether they were most wonderful for good-nature or impertinence.

Coronado was civil to them.  The Navajos abide or migrate on the south, the north, and the west of the Moqui pueblas.  He was in a manner within their country, and it was still necessary for him to traverse a broad stretch of it, especially if he should attempt to reach the San Juan.  Besides, he wanted them to warn the Apaches out of the neighborhood and thus avert from his head the vengeance of Manga Colorada.  Accordingly he gave this pair of roystering troopers a plentiful dinner and a taste of aguardiente.  Toward sunset they departed in high good-humor, promising to turn back the hoofs of the Apache horses; and when in the morning Coronado saw no Indians on the plain, he joyously trusted that his visitors had fulfilled their agreement.

Somewhere or other, within the next day or two, there was a grand council of the two tribes.  We know little of it; we can guess that Manga Colorada must have made great concessions or splendid promises to the Navajos; but it is only certain that he obtained leave to traverse their country.  Having secured this privilege, he posted himself fifteen or twenty miles to the southwest of Tegua, behind a butte which was extensive enough to conceal his wild cavalry, even in its grazings.  He undoubtedly supposed that, when the train should quit its shelter, it would go to the west or to the south.  In either case he was in a position to fall upon it.

Did the savage know anything about Coronado?  Had he attacked his wagons without being aware that they belonged to the man who had paid him five hundred dollars and sent him to harry Bernalillo?  Or had he attacked in full knowledge of this fact, because he had been beaten off the southern trail, and believed that he had been lured thither to be beaten?  Had he learned, either from Apaches or Navajos, whose hand it was that slew his boy?  We can only ask these questions.