“The young chief of the Shoshones Is returning to his brave people across the rugged mountains.  Learn his name, so that you may tell your children that they have a friend in Owato Wanisha.  He Is neither a Shakanath (an Englishman) nor a Kishemoc Comoanak (a long knife, a Yankee).  He Is a chief among the tribe of our great-grandfathers, he is a chief, though he is very, very young.”

At this moment all the warriors came, one after the other, to shake hands with me, and when this ceremony was terminated, the chief resumed his discourse.

“Owato Wanisha, we met as strangers, we part as friends.  Tell your young warriors you have been among the Comanches, and that we would like to know them.  Tell them to come, a few or many, to our waikiams (lodges); they will find the moshkotaj (buffalo) in plenty.

“Farewell, young chief, with a pale face and an Indian heart; the earth be light to thee and thine.  May the white Manitou clear for thee the mountain path, and may you never fail to remember Opishka Toaki (the White Raven), who is thy Comanche friend, and who would fain share with thee his home, his wealth, and his wide prairies.  I have said:  young brother, farewell.”

The tears stood in our eyes as gallantly the band wheeled round.  We watched them till they had all disappeared in the horizon.  And these noble fellows were Indians; had they been Texans, they would have murdered us to obtain our horses and rifles.

Two days after, we crossed the Rio Grande, and entered the dreary path of the mountains In the hostile and Inhospitable country of the Navahoes and the Crows[16].

[Footnote 16:  The Crows are gallant horsemen; but although they have assumed the manners and customs of the Shoshones, they are of the Dahcotah breed.  There is a great difference between the Shoshone tribes and the Crows.  The latter want that spirit of chivalry so remarkable among the Comanches, the Arrapahoes, and the Shoshones—­that nobility of feeling which scorns to take an enemy at a disadvantage, I should say that the Shoshone tribes are the lions and the Crows the tigers of these deserts.]

We had been travelling eight days on a most awful stony road, when at last we reached the head waters of the Colorado of the West, but we were very weak, not having touched any food during the last five days, except two small rattlesnakes, and a few berries we had picked up on the way.  On the morning we had chased a large grizzly bear, but to no purpose; our poor horses and ourselves were too exhausted to follow the animal for any time, and with its disappearance vanished away all hopes of a dinner.

It was evening before we reached the river, and, by that time, we were so much maddened with hunger, that we seriously thought of killing one of our horses.  Luckily, at that instant, we espied smoke rising from a camp of Indians in a small valley.  That they were foes we had no doubt; but hunger can make heroes, and we determined to take a meal at their expense.  The fellows had been lucky, for around their tents they had hung upon poles large pieces of meat to dry.  They had no horses, and only a few dogs scattered about the camp.  We skirted the plain in silence, and at dark we had arrived at three hundred yards from them, concealed by the projecting rocks which formed a kind of belt around the camp.