“Señor Superintendente! You will sell me a bond?” “Yes, I will sell you a bond, as quickly as any one else.” “Upon the payment of a dollar?” he deliberated, gravely. “That is right. You pay a dollar down, and I will give you a receipt for it; then I will borrow the rest for you, holding the bond as security until you have paid it out.” He looked around at his tormentors, as if to say: “You see, this man knows a Spanish gentleman when he meets one.” All his Indian pride, plus all he had garnered from the Dons, was aroused. He came to the desk, while they continued to cry him down. “Where’s your dollar?” they asked mockingly. “You haven’t any dollar!” And I was much afraid he had not. A fluke would not do. It would mean losing the lot, and I knew there were many present who could afford to buy on payments and who would make good. The old man grinned wisely. “I will sign the paper for a bond,” he said. The blank was shoved forward to him. He daubed his right thumb on an ink-pad to make his thumb-print, the signature the Government accepts from Indians who cannot write. He pressed it down on the dotted line. “Now where’s your dollar, old father?” jeered the crowd. Slowly he reached into his pocket, and drew out a rusty jackknife. He looked all around him gravely, knowing, as a Spanish-Indian knows, that he and he only held the centre of the stage. And then, beginning at the top, he began to cut buttons from his old coat—Navajo silver buttons, coin of the Empire when in need. He placed them, one by one, on the desk before me, counting: “Una—dos—tres—” They were worth fifteen, perhaps twenty cents each, as the desert market fluctuated. As he laid each button down, he looked at me to see if the dollar was completed. “That isn’t money,” said one of the crowd. “Cinco—” he counted, looking up. “Buena! Lo-lo-mi! Write a receipt for one dollar, and mark Wupa down as having bought a bond.” “Thank you, Quat-che [friend]; you are the first man to help Washington.” We shook hands on it, and he was proud of himself. Turning, “You see—” he motioned to the crowd, and strutted back to his place. The others were now silent. In a manner of speaking, their bluff had been called; and by Wupa! “Now who buys the second bond to help Washington?” Those who had laughed and mocked the loudest were now quiet. They began to sway about, hesitating, looking from one to another, and then to come forward. In the next few minutes, twelve hundred dollars in Liberty Bonds were sold, most of them for spot cash. The old man from the border had “helped me out,” as the Indians say, and when the selling was over I read them a mild lecture on making game of their first patriot. To my astonishment, several of them then offered to help him with a fence he was building all alone.