“I’ll do it, sah. Jiminy, but I will! A hull hundred dollars earned in half an hour! It’s more’n I could save in t’ree years. Golly! I never saved anyt’ing yet. I ain’t afraid. I’ve seen Injuns afore now. I’ll go.” The money was at once raised and put into the captain’s hands, and the negro, having inspected it to make sure that it was all right, prepared for immediate departure. He received some instructions as to how he was to act, what he was to say if he could make the red men understand his language, and what gestures he was to make if they did not. No weapon was allowed him, lest he should make indiscreet use of it and precipitate ruin upon the whole party. In fact, there were no weapons in the company except one clumsy five-barreled revolver and three small pistols. In the wreck it had been all they could do to escape with their lives. “Be sure to tell them that we are well armed,” said the captain, smiling, “but that we are good men, and do not want to harm them. Tell them we want nothing but food and we will pay for that, and then we’ll go right away.” They gave him some money in silver, and told him to give that to the Indians and to promise them as much more as soon as the provisions were sent. “Be discreet, Joe, now, for everything depends on that,” said Cody. “Remember the ladies must not be endangered.” “I will, sah; I’ll be bery ’screet.” “And whatever happens don’t get angry. When you get near them stop and lay your hand on your heart--so--and point to the sky.” Joe, in attempting to imitate the gesture of his instructor, put his hand on a region a great deal lower than his heart and one that might be considered the more immediate seat of suffering from his prolonged fasting. This error being corrected, he was permitted to depart, and he set out with perfect confidence and with no small sense of the dignity of his mission. The huts were about a mile distant, and he walked rapidly at first, but with more deliberation when he got within ordinary rifle shot of the settlement. From this point he proceeded warily and with great vigilance, soliloquizing some; but, fearing that he might be overheard, he was very chary of his language. “If de red debbils--gemmen, I mean--is gwine to fire I wish to gracious dey’d do it now,” he said, “before I git any closer and w’ile dare’s time to run. I can’t see nuffin’ movin’ ober dare.” At a quarter of a mile from the village he stopped and bowed very low, cap in hand, and he repeated his performance every few rods as he proceeded, varying it at times by smiting his heart and pointing upward. Still he saw nobody, and, although he believed the Indians were in hiding, near to or in their lodges, he went forward, though with much trepidation, repeating in the intervals between his obeisances the only prayer he could recall to memory--beginning, “Now I lay me down to sleep.”