“You fool of a Red-skin, not cunning enough for a Mexican:  you refused my gold; now I have the mare for nothing, and I will make the trappers laugh when I tell them how easily I have outwitted a Shoshone.”

The Indian looked at the Mexican for a few moments in silence, for his heart was big, and the shameful treachery wounded him to the very core.  At last, he spoke:—­

“Pale-face,” said he, “for the sake of others, I may not kill thee.  Keep the mare, since thou art dishonest enough to steal the only property of a poor man; keep her, but never say a work how thou earnest by her, lest hereafter a Shoshone, having learned distrust, should not hearken to the voice of grief and woe.  Away, away with her! let me never see her again, or in an evil hour the desire of vengeance may make a bad man of me.”

The Mexican was wild, inconsiderate, and not over-scrupulous, but not without feeling:  he dismounted from the horse, and putting the bridle in the hand of the Shoshone, “Brother,” said he, “I have done wrong, pardon me! from an Indian I learn virtue, and for the future, when I would commit any deed of injustice, I will think of thee.”

Two Apaches loved the same girl; one was a great chief, the other a young warrior, who had entered the war-path but a short time.  Of course, the parents of the young girl rejected the warriors suit, as soon as the chief proposed himself.  Time passed, and the young man, broken-hearted, left all the martial exercises, in which he had excelled.  He sought solitude, starting early in the morning from the wigwam, and returning but late in the night, when the fires were out.  The very day on which he was to lead the young girl to his lodge, the chief went bear-hunting among the hills of the neighbourhood.  Meeting with a grizzly bear, he fired at him:  but at the moment he pulled the trigger his foot slipped, and he fell down, only wounding the fierce animal, which now, smarting and infuriated with pain, rushed upon him.

The chief had been hurt in his fall, he was incapable of defence, and knew that he was lost.  He shut his eyes, and waited for his death-blow, when the report of a rifle and the springing of the bear in the agonies of death made him once more open his eyes; he started upon his feet, there lay the huge monster, and near him stood the young warrior who timely rescued him.

The chief recognized his rival, and his gratitude overpowering all other feelings, he took the warrior by the hand, and grasped it firmly.

“Brother,” he said, “thou hast saved my life at a time when It was sweet, more so than usual.  Let us be brothers.”

The young man’s breast heaved with contending passions; but he, too, was a noble fellow.

“Chief,” answered he, “when I saw the bear rushing upon thee, I thought It was the Manitou who had taken compassion on my sufferings, my heart for an instant felt light and happy; but as death was near thee, very near, the Good Spirit whispered his wishes, and I have saved thee for happiness.  It is I who must die!  I am nothing, have no friends, no one to care for me, to love me, to make pleasant in the lodge the dull hours of night.  Chief, farewell!”