The Spanish Pioneers by Charles Fletcher Lummis

But now to go back a little. The young officer who made that superb leap across the chasm at Acoma, pushed back the bridge-log, and so saved the lives of his comrades, and indirectly of all the Spanish in New Mexico, was Captain Gaspar Perez de Villagran.[15] He was highly educated, being a graduate of a Spanish university; young, ambitious, fearless, and athletic; a hero among the heroes of the New World, and a chronicler to whom we are greatly indebted. The six extant copies of the fat little parchment-bound book of his historical poem, in thirty-four heroic cantos, are each worth many times their weight in gold. It is a great pity that we could not have had a Villagran for each of the campaigns of the pioneers of America, to tell us more of the details of those superhuman dangers and hardships, -- for most of the chroniclers of that day treat such episodes as briefly as we would a trip from New York to Brooklyn.

The leaping of the chasm was not Captain Villagran's only connection with the bloody doings at Acoma in the winter of 1598-99. He came very near being a victim of the first massacre, in which Juan de Zaldivar and his men perished, and escaped that fate only to suffer hardships as fearful as death.