and his people, and will give them clothes, such as the soldiers wear. I will be his friend and fight for him if he and his people are good.” I said, “Colonel, my good papa has never done anything unkind to the white people yet, and the soldiers came to Muddy Lake and killed a great many of our people there without our doing any bad thing to them. They killed my little brother. This is what drove my poor papa away; we have not seen him for two years.” Brother then said, “Yes, colonel, it is too bad the way the white people say all the time that Indians are bad, and that they have bad hearts, and that their hearts are very black. Colonel, if you will give me your heart and hand, I will go and try to get my father to come to you.”
“Yes, Natchez, I will do everything I have told you. I will send one company of cavalry with you. Your sister can stay here, and talk for those that are already here. She shall be my interpreter, and I will pay her sixty-five dollars per month, and I will pay you five dollars a day while you are away.”
Brother said, “Colonel, I don’t want to have any soldiers go with me. I will go all alone, because my people will think I have brought soldiers to fight them. For fear they will think so, I will go alone. I will find my father sooner by going alone; for I will make the son’s signal-fire as I go along, and my father will know it is I who is coming to see him (the signal-fires are like so many telegraphs of many kinds and orders), and he will come to meet me. And colonel, you will take good care of my sister. See that no soldiers talk to her, and colonel, I want you to give me a paper to tell the white people I meet who I am, so they will not kill me. You know, colonel, the white men like to kill us Indians.”
The colonel said, “All right, Natchez, I will give you a paper.”
