Every autumn these Indians camped in the timber only about a mile from Errolstrath ranche, and it was very natural that the boys, especially Joe, should often visit their temporary village, as it was decidedly a new sensation for them. The tepees, or lodges, built in a conical shape out of long poles covered with well-tanned buffalo hides, were a never-ending curiosity to Joe. The chief of the band, Yellow Calf, an old man nearly eighty years of age, took a great fancy to Joe from the moment he first saw him. As soon as he became acquainted with his character he called him "White Panther," after the strange nomenclature of the North American savage. The Indians noticed immediately that Joe was different from the majority of white children they had met, and his quickness of motion was the reason they named him as they did. His readiness in acquiring their language, which he almost mastered in a few months, astonished them. Then Joe was always kind and gentle to the band, often bringing food from his mother's table when she could give it to him, especially bread or biscuit, of which old Yellow Calf was inordinately fond. At the suggestion of the chief, the closest warriors of his council took great delight in showing their new boy friend the use of the bow and arrow. They taught him how to prepare the skins of animals he shot; how to make the robe of the buffalo as soft as a doeskin, and they taught him how to trap beaver, otter, and muskrat, in which valuable fur-bearing animals all the streams abounded. Yellow Calf would sit for hours talking with Joe, learning from him all about the strange inventions of the white man, and their uses. He in turn taught the boy the mysteries of the beautiful sign language, so wonderful in its symbolism; and the manner of trailing, so that in a few months he was as well versed in the methods of following an enemy on the warpath as the savages themselves. The Indians frequently took Joe with them far up the Arkansas valley on their grand hunts after the buffalo. His parents readily gave their consent to his going with his red friends, though he was sometimes absent from home for more than a week. For three seasons the same band of Pawnees had their village on the creek, remaining there during the months of September and October of each year. All that time Joe continued his intimacy with them, and became more perfect in his knowledge of their savage methods. He could follow the blindest trail by day or night, and the signs of the various hostile tribes were as familiar to him as the alphabet.