My hands and arms seemed almost dead, and some minutes elapsed before they recovered the consciousness of life. Looking in the face of the chief, I saw that he was an old man. As in great age it not unfrequently happens, his face had regained somewhat of the kindliness of youth. At any rate it lacked the repulsive character which marked that of my captor. Suddenly, it seemed to me--was I dreaming? No! This time, I was certain of it. He had made the Masonic sign of distress. The girl's sympathetic glance had been palpably an omen of good. Trembling with agitation I responded. What immediately followed I am unable to recall. Indeed, I doubt whether at the time I was thoroughly conscious of it. When I undoubtedly had fully recovered my presence of mind, I found that matters had completely changed for me. The death at the stake, which had seemed to be my destiny, had faded from my senses. The red devils almost seemed to have been transmuted into copper-colored angels. I was seated on a buffalo-robe, and some of the elder squaws were bathing my swollen limbs with cooling lotions, and looking--gratitude was almost compelling me to say what literal truth cannot. They certainly did not look in any wise amiable or handsome. While this was going on, a tall and splendidly formed specimen of the red man entered the hut. He was dressed in a robe or tunic, magnificently embroidered with shells and beads. He had evidently been sent for by the chief, as I soon discovered, because he was able to speak English. The only blemish in his personal appearance was a sort of dip in his right eyebrow, which partially closed the organ beneath. White superstition might possibly have gifted him with the evil eye. The Indian name he bore somewhat corresponded with this, as he was called Par-a-wau, or "The Warning Devil." First, addressing the chief (I afterwards found this was Old Spotted Tail) in their own tongue, he received an answer. Then turning to me, he extended his hand and gave me the Masonic grip. After this, he seated himself beside me, and addressed me in my own tongue, asking how I came upon the hunting-grounds of the Cheyennes, where I was from, and whither I was going? When he had received my answers and repeated them to the chief in the tongue of their tribe, he next began to inquire very minutely about Masonry among the palefaces. In subsequent conversations with him, for in the present case I had only to reply, I found that the Indians had first been initiated in its mysteries by the agents of the Hudson Bay Company. Neither had it been much carried beyond the northern and western tribes. This was learnt from Par-a-wau, when I began to feel perfectly at ease with him.