“I have fasted, I have prayed, I have dreamed.  Old men, who have lived almost all their life, have a keener perception to read the wishes of the Master of Life concerning the future.  I am a chief, and have been a chief during sixty changes of the season.  I am proud of my station, and as I have struck deepest in the heart of our enemies, I am jealous of that power which is mine, and would yield it to no one, if the great Manitou did not order it.  When this sun will have disappeared behind the salt-water, I shall no longer be a chief!  Owato Wanisha will guide our warriors, he will preside in council, for two gods are with him—­the Manitou of the Pale-faces and the Manitou of the Red-skins.

“Hear my words, Shoshones!  I shall soon join my father and grandfather in the happy lands, for I am old!  Yet, before my bones are buried at the foot of the hills, it would brighten my heart to see the glory of the Shoshones, which I know must be in a short time.  Hear my words!  Long ages ago some of our children, not finding our hunting-grounds wide enough for the range-of their arrows, left us.  They first wandered in the south, and in the beautiful prairies of the east, under a climate blessed by the good spirits.  They grew and grew in number till their families were as numerous as ours, and as they were warriors and their hearts big, they spread themselves, and, soon crossing the big mountains, their eagle glance saw on each side of their territory the salt-water of the sunrise and the salt-water of the sunset.  These are the Comanches, a powerful nation.  The Comanches even now have a Shoshone heart, a Shoshone tongue.  Owato Wanisha has been with them; he says they are friends, and have not forgotten that they are the children of the Great Serpent.

“Long, long while afterwards, yet not long enough that I should escape the memory and the records of our holy men, some other of our children, hearing of the power of the Comanches of their wealth, of their beautiful country, determined also to leave us and spread to the south.  These are the Apaches From the top of the big mountains, always covered with snow they look towards the bed of the sun.  They see the green grass of the prairie below them, and afar the blue salt-water Their houses are as numerous as the stars in heaven, their warriors as thick as the shells in the bottom of our lakes.  They are brave; they are feared by the Pale-faces—­by all; and they too, know that we are their fathers; their tongue is our tongue their Manitou our Manitou; their heart a portion of our heart and never has the knife of a Shoshone drunk the blood of a Apache, nor the belt of an Apache suspended the scalp of Shoshone.