of hundreds of Native Americans. The Spaniards also captured a Wichita woman, Big Eyes, who had been enslaved by the Tiguex, and who would become a guide for the expedition. Search for Quivira From an indigenous informant the Spanish called "the Turk" (el turco), Vázquez de Coronado heard of a wealthy nation called Quivira far to the east. In spring 1541, he led his army and priests and indigenous allies onto the Great Plains to search for Quivira. The Turk was probably either Wichita or Pawnee and his intention seems to have been to lead Vázquez de Coronado astray and hope that he got lost in the Great Plains. With the Turk guiding him, Vázquez de Coronado and his army might have crossed the flat and featureless steppe called the Llano Estacado in the Texas Panhandle and Eastern New Mexico, passing through the present-day communities of Hereford and Canadian. The Spanish were awed by the Llano. "The country they [the buffalo] traveled over was so smooth that if one looked at them the sky could be seen between their legs." Men and horses became lost in the featureless plain and Vázquez de Coronado felt like he had been swallowed up by the sea. On the Llano, Vázquez de Coronado encountered vast herds of bison—the American buffalo. "I found such a quantity of cows ... that it is impossible to number them, for while I was journeying through these plains ... there was not a day that I lost sight of them." Querechos and Teyas Vázquez de Coronado found a community of people he called Querechos. The Querechos were not awed or impressed by the Spanish, their weapons, and their "big dogs" (horses). "They did nothing unusual when they saw our army, except to come out of their tents to look at us, after which they came to talk to the advance guard, and asked who we were." As Vázquez de Coronado described them, the Querechos were nomads, following the buffalo herds on the plains. The Querechos were numerous. Chroniclers mentioned one settlement of two hundred tipis—which implies a population of more than one thousand people living together for at least part of the year. Authorities agree that the Querechos (Becquerel's) were Apache Indians. Vázquez de Coronado left the Querechos behind and continued southeast in the direction in which the Turk told him that Quivira was located. He and his army