Our Catliolic Heritage in T 1-:xa.1,·
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soldiers that if they wanted their horses back, they would have to bargain for them. He also discovered a Pampopa Indian squaw and an Indian woman from San Juan Bautista being held as captives. Upon inquiring how they had come into their possession, the mission Indians of La Junta said they had bought them from the Apaches. The governor asked the missionary to induce the Indians to release these captives, and. after much persuasion, they agreed to give them up. Rabago y Teran, who did not want the natives to think that he was buying the captives, distributed some presents to their owners. On December 22, he took twenty men and made a careful exploration of the juncture of the Conchos and the Rio Grande, crossing into Texas at this point and examining the river for a distance to determine the extent of its valley. The next day he marched along the Conchos to the west for a distance of about six leagues. Along the way he noted rancherzas of Conejos, Cacolotes, and Mesquites. These Indians were all very independent. They heard Mass when they pleased and prayed only when they felt like it. They were good horsemen and seemed to depend for their living on the chase and on the trade with the Apaches. They did little or no planting. Six leagues west along the Conchos was the Mission of San Juan Bautista del Rio Conchos. On December 28, he again went east from Guadalupe and passed San Antonio de los Puliques and San Cristobal on the Texas side of the river, pitching a camp a league and a half from Guadalupe. The following day he crossed the Rio Grande into Texas and traveled to some high hills to the east, and after going about three leagues came to a small ravine in which he found a spring around which grew some cottonwoods. To the east of Presidio, about ten miles, is Alamito Creek, and a mile or two east of it is Black Hills Creek which is joined by another just as it enters the Rio Grande. This latter stream is Torneros Creek, which runs almost due east and seems to be the one which Rabago y Teran followed, going ten leagues farther east that day. He was told by his guides that Alamito Creek was the trading ground where the mission Indians from La Junta met the Apaches to exchange their wares. The next day he turned northeast and went five leagues before coming to another ravine with a spring. This ravine seemed to divide two ranges of mountains. He followed it for five leagues more and camped. On January 1, 1748, he turned south and east and tr~veled in ~his gene~al direction until January 6, when he recrossed the Rio _Grande mto :-1ex1co thirty or forty miles below Presidio and followed his former trail.
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