Even in their warfare, you often may imagine that you were among the knights of ancient days.  An Arrapahoe and a Shoshone warrior armed with a buckler and their long lances, will single out and challenge each other; they run a tilt, and as each has warded off the blow, and passed unhurt, they will courteously turn back and salute each other, as an acknowledgment of their enemy’s bravery and skill.  When these challenges take place, or indeed in any single combat without challenge, none of these Indians will take advantage of possessing a superior weapon.  If one has a rifle and knows that his opponent has not, he will throw his rifle down, and only use the same weapon as his adversary.

I will now relate some few traits of character, which will prove the nobility of these Indians[18].

[Footnote 18:  There is every prospect of these north-western tribes remaining in their present primitive state, indeed of their gradual improvement, for nothing can induce them to touch spirits.  They know that the eastern Indians have been debased and conquered by the use of them, and consider an offer of a dram from an American trader as an indirect attempt upon their life and honour.]

Every year during the season dedicated to the performing of the religious ceremonies, premiums are given by the holy men and elders of the tribe to those among the young men who have the most distinguished themselves.  The best warrior receives a feather of the black eagle; the most successful hunter obtains a robe of buffalo-skin, painted inside, and representing some of his most daring exploits; the most virtuous has for his share a coronet made either of gold or silver; and these premiums are suspended in their wigwams, as marks of honour, and handed down to their posterity.  In fact, they become a kind of ecusson, which ennobles a family.

Once during the distribution of these much-coveted prizes, a young man of twenty-two was called by the chiefs to receive the premium of virtue.  The Indian advanced towards his chiefs, when an elder of the tribe rising, addressed the whole audience.  He pointed the young man out, as one whose example should be followed, and recorded, among many other praiseworthy actions, that three squaws, with many children, having been reduced to misery by the death of their husbands in the last war against the Crows, this young man, although the deceased were the greatest foes of his family, undertook to provide for their widows and children till the boys, grown up, would be able to provide for themselves and their mothers.  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.

The young man bowed, and as the venerable chief was stooping to put the coronet upon his head, he started back and, to the astonishment of all, refused the premium.