“Chiefs, warriors, elders of the Shoshones, pardon me!  You know the good which I have done, but you know not in what I have erred.  My first feeling was to receive the coronet, and conceal what wrong I had done; but a voice in my heart forbids my taking what others have perchance better deserved.

“Hear me, Shoshones! the truth must be told; hear my shame!  One day, I was hungry; it was in the great prairies.  I had killed no game, and I was afraid to return among our young men with empty hands.  I remained four days hunting, and still I saw neither buffaloes nor bears.  At last, I perceived the tent of an Arrapahoe.  I went in; there was no one there, and it was full of well-cured meat.  I had not eaten for five days; I was hungry, and I became a thief, I took away a large piece, and ran away like a cowardly wolf.  I have said:  the prize cannot be mine.”

A murmur ran through the assembly, and the chiefs, holy men, and elders consulted together.  At last, the ancient chief advanced once more towards the young man, and took his two hands between his own.  “My son,” he said, “good, noble, and brave; thy acknowledgment of thy fault and self-denial in such a moment make thee as pure as a good spirit in the eyes-of the great Manitou.  Evil, when confessed and repented of, is forgotten; bend thy head, my son, and let me crown thee.  The premium is twice deserved and twice due.”

A Shoshone warrior possessed a beautiful mare; no horse in the prairie could outspeed her, and in the buffalo or bear hunt she would enjoy the sport as much as her master, and run alongside the huge beast with great courage and spirit.  Many propositions were made to the warrior to sell or exchange the animal, but he would not hear of it.  The dumb brute was his friend, his sole companion; they had both shared the dangers of battle and the privations of prairie travelling; why should he part with her?  The fame of that mare extended so far, that in a trip he made to San Francisco, several Mexicans offered him large sums of money; nothing, however, could shake him in his resolution.  In those countries, though horses will often be purchased at the low price of one dollar, it often happens that a steed, well known as a good hunter or a rapid pacer, will bring sums equal to those paid in England for a fine racehorse.

One of the Mexicans, a wild young man, resolved to obtain the mare, whether or no.  One evening, when the Indian was returning from some neighbouring plantation, the Mexican laid down in some bushes at a short distance from the road, and moaned as if in the greatest pain.  The good and kind-hearted Indian having reached the spot, heard his cries of distress, dismounted from his mare, and offered any assistance:  it was nearly dark, and although he knew the sufferer to be a Pale-face, yet he could not distinguish his features.  The Mexican begged for a drop of water, and the Indian dashed into a neighbouring thicket to procure it for him.  As soon as the Indian was sufficiently distant, the Mexican vaulted upon the mare, and apostrophized the Indian:—­