“The Shoshones fight the Crows, because the Crows are thieves; the Flat-heads, because they are greedy of our buffaloes; the Umbiquas, because they steal horses.  Were it not for them, the children of the Grand Serpent would never fight; their lodges would fill with wealth, and that wealth would purchase all the good things of the white men from distant lands.  These white men-come to the Watchinangoes (Mexicans), to take the hides of their oxen, the wool of their sheep.  They would come to us, if we had anything to offer them.  Let us then call them, for we have the hides of thousands of buffaloes; we have the furs of the beaver and the otter; we have plenty of copper in our mountains, and of gold in our streams.

“Now, hear me.  When a Shoshone chief thinks that the Crows will attack his lodge, he calls his children and his nephews around him.  A nation can do the same.  The Shoshones have many brave children in the prairies of the South; they have many more on the borders of the Yankees.  All of them think and speak like their ancestors, they are the same people.  Now would it not be good and wise to have all these brave grand-children and grand-nephews as your neighbours and allies, instead of the Crows, the Cayuses, and the Umbiquas?  Yes, it would.  Who would dare to come from the north across a country inhabited by the warlike Comanches, or from the south and the rising sun, through the wigwams of the Apaches?  The Shoshones would then have more than 30,000 warriors; they would sweep the country, from the sea to the mountains, from the river of the north (Columbia) to the towns of the Watchinangoes.  When the white men would come in their big canoes, as traders and friends, we would receive them well; if they come as foes, we will laugh at them, and whip them like dogs.  These are the thoughts which I wanted to make known to the Shoshones.

“During my absence, I have seen the Apaches and the Comanches.  They are both great nations.  Let us send some wise men to invite them to return to their fathers; let our chiefs offer them wood, land, and water.  I have said.”

As long as I spoke, the deepest silence reigned over the whole assembly; but as soon as I sat down, and began smoking, there was a general movement, which showed me that I had made an impression.  The old great chief rose, however, and the murmurs were hushed.  He spoke:—­

“Owato Wanisha has spoken.  I have heard.  It was a strange vision, a beautiful dream.  My heart came young again, my body lighter, and my eyes more keen.  Yet I cannot see the future; I must fast and pray, I must ask the great Master of Life to lend me his wisdom.

“I know the Comanches, I know the Apaches, and the Arrapahoes.  They are our children; I know it.  The Comanches have left us a long, long time, but the Apaches and Arrapahoes have not yet forgotten the hunting-grounds where their fathers were born.  When I was but a young hunter, they would come every snow to the lodge of our Manitou, to offer their presents.  It was long before any Pale-face had passed the mountains.  Since that the leaves of the oaks have grown and died eighty times.  It is a long while for a man, but for a nation it is but as yesterday.