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In the remarks which I am about to make relative to the Shoshones, I may as well observe that the same observations will equally apply to the Comanches, Apaches, and Arrapahoes, as they are but subdivisions and offsets from the original stock the Shoshones. The Wakoes, who have not yet been mentioned, or even seen, by any other travellers, I shall hereafter describe.
The spokesman of the runners, the runner to the Chopponish, stepped forward. With gestures of perfect grace, and in a voice that rang like a silver trumpet, he repeated the ancient oath of the Willamettes, the oath used by the Shoshones to-day. "The earth hears us, the sun sees us. Shall we fail in fidelity to our chief?" There was a pause.
With Kiowas we fought; we crossed the Big Muddy and long and bitter wars we had with Shoshones and Pawnees. Later we fought the Utes. We are the Fighting Cheyennes. "That is how it is when a peaceful people are turned fighters. For we are peaceful. We came from the East, for one of our wise men had foretold that one day we should meet White Men and be conquered by them.
Their services being no longer required, they turned towards the north, and started for the settlement under the command of Roche, to follow up their original intentions of visiting the Shoshones. As for us, I remained behind at San Francisco. Up to the present portion of my narrative, I have lived and kept company with Indians and a few white men who had conformed to their manners and customs.
The signal to charge was given to the Arrapahoes, and at that moment the Shoshones, who till then had remained inactive with me on the hill, started at full gallop to their appointed duty. The charge of the Arrapahoes was rapid and terrific, and, when the smoke and dust had cleared away, I perceived them in the plain a mile off, driving before them the Mexican cavalry, reduced to half its number.
The current was now in our favour, and in four days more we landed among my good friends, the Shoshones, who, after our absence of nine months, received us with almost a childish joy. They had given us up for dead, and suspecting the Crows of having had a hand in our disappearance, they had made an invasion into their territory.
Since that time, he had given them the produce of his chase, reserving to himself nothing but what was strictly necessary to sustain the wants of nature. This was a noble and virtuous act, one that pleased the Manitou. It was an example which all the Shoshones should follow.
No freer life ever was lived by any savages than by the Horse Indians of the Plains in the buffalo days; and never has the world known a physically higher type of savage. On the buffalo-range that is to say, on the cattle-range which was to be Lewis and Clark met several bands of the Sioux the Mandans and the Assiniboines, the Blackfeet, the Shoshones.
They have in their territory on both sides of the Buona Ventura river many magnificent remains of devastated cities; but although connected with a former period of their history, they were not erected by the Shoshones.
The traditions of the Shoshones fully bear out my opinion, that they were among the earliest of the Asiatic emigrants; they contain histories of subsequent emigrations, in which they had to fight hard to retain their lands; of the dispersion of the new emigrants to the north and south; of the increase of numbers, and breaking up of portions of the tribes, who travelled away to seek subsistence in the East.
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