“Keep still, Joe,” replied the other, smiling, and then proceeding to correct the mistake by assuring the red men, in the best mixed English and Indian that he could command, that he offered them real, living horses, of any color that they chose, and real rifles and blankets, and everything else which he had enumerated, real and substantial, and of the best kind.
“Me no see um,” replied the chief, affecting to look around through the door and window. “Does my brother keep his horses in the clouds or under the great lake?”
That both the Indians were altogether incredulous, and were now inclined to depart in disgust, was quite apparent, and it was with no little difficulty that Buffalo Bill succeeded in making them understand the remaining part of his proposition.
They should retain their prisoner, he said, until the time came, which should be at the farthest by the next new moon—about twenty days ahead—and if they failed to receive all that had been promised they might then carry out their sentence against him.
As a pledge of his sincerity and of his expectations to redeem his promises, he offered the chief his watch to keep until he came back, bringing all the gifts; and Joe added to this offer that of his magic corkscrew, on the special condition that it should be kept safe and should be returned to him “w’en de hosses and guns come.”
The Indians, though still looking amazed, now seemed much pleased, and said they would both talk to Black Panther and to their people, and try to turn their hearts if it was not too late; but that the prisoner was already being led to the tree, as his friends could see, and that his tortures had probably begun.
“Then, for Heaven’s sake, make haste!” exclaimed Cody, who remembered the pistol in Hare’s possession; “and you, Congo, run! run! Get as near to him as you can, and tell him what we are doing.”
“Yes, sah; I’ll try,” said Joe. “But Black Panther, he’ll drive me off, I know, and I ’fraid he tommyhawk me.
“Run! run! I’ll follow as fast as I can. If you can’t get near enough to speak to him, make signs that we are coming.”
The four men all started for the scene of torture, but at very different rates of speed, for the two Indians walked with stately gravity, conversing as they went.