When night overtook the riders they were some leagues easterly of this defile and camped in the open where they could detect danger.

At the end of each day's story Garcilaso gave the number of leagues the cavaliers had accomplished for that day. At this point he stated that they had made 13 leagues, which would place their sleeping spot two leagues eastwards of the Aucilla.

Previous historians have not noticed it, so far as is known; but Garcilaso seemingly misread his notes at this juncture and introduced an error. As with all feature-writing reporters, he made voluminous notes, without doubt, as he interviewed survivors. He wrote his book but slowly during a period of over 50 years so his notes, of course, became "cold."

The second day Garcilaso started the cavaliers off with this statement: "Before it was day they set out to continue their journey. They traveled the 12 leagues between the swamp at the river and town of Chief Osachile." Of course he referred to the same swamp and river -- which he named the Swamp of Apalache -- where the defile was and which was left two leagues behind when the horsemen slept.

There is, in this, a discrepancy of two leagues, for the swamp was 11 leagues along the way. If they went a total of 13 leagues the first day they would be two leagues eastwards of the swamp when they started off the second day. Garcilaso erroneously starts them off at the swamp. It will be seen below that this discrepancy is corrected by a bit of simple arithmetic and common sense, using other Garcilaso data.

The riders did not worry about the Indian towns they would need to dash through that second day, except the one where the massacre occurred after the assault on De Soto. Neither did they fear traversing several leagues of cultivated fields wherein the Indians had hidden and tormented the army when going the other direction. The corn would now be harvested so it would not afford am-bush cover. The location of these fields is well preserved in history by such maps as Purcell's (1770) so it is determined that the cavaliers were moving southwesterly from the Aucilla River.

They so dreaded the passage through the Indian town where the massacre took place that they lessened the pace they had taken the first day, planning to rush through just as dusk would add to the element of surprise.

However, before they came to that town they would come to a large river which was flooded when the army crossed it. The army had marched four leagues from the massacre village to the river. Thus, after crossing the river in reverse direction, the cavaliers would reach the town by a four-league ride.

Garcilaso gave cumulative mileage data for each day up to this point and then suddenly discounted the procedure. It is readily deduced by attentive students, taking all the narrations into consideration, that he tried to decipher his notes; and, seeing that he was probably shuffling them for the first days, he discontinued the detail. Thereafter he gave only narrative and the principal items of his notes, such as the daily distances accomplished.

The points brought out herein are based upon a coordination of data from all the De Soto narratives, with corrections where a preponderance of evidence determined it. However, these corrections are not in numerical data, but in their arrangement of sequence -- except for the two leagues mentioned above. In order to vindicate the correction of that amount, the following table is given of distances made by the thirty riders during the first seven days, as given by Garcilaso:

Garcilaso swears "by the code of a noble gentleman" that after a full week the cavaliers had traveled 107 leagues. If the leagues in the table above are totaled it will be found that it is 105 leagues. Thus, we have the correction for the error mentioned of two leagues at the Aucilla River Swamp first encountered by the riders. Therefore, two leagues should be added to either the first or second day's journey to conform to Garcilaso's sworn total.

The ride of Soto's messengers, taking his orders to the starting camp garrison, has been traced hereto as far as the Indian village where the governor was severely mauled in the face by a chief. Garcilaso relates that the cavaliers then advanced one more league, pulled off to the side of the route and slept under guard of sentinels.