ter at the spring that
his children may drink it undefiled. I am Ausaqua, chief of Shoshones,
and I drink at the head-water. Shoshone and Comanche are brothers. Let
them drink together."

"No. The Shoshone pays tribute to the Comanche, and Wacomish leads that
nation to war. He is chief of the Shoshone as he is of his own people."

"Wacomish lies. His tongue is forked, like the snake's. His heart is
black. When the Great Spirit made his children he said not to one, 'Drink
here,' and to another, 'Drink there,' but gave water that all might
drink."

The other made no answer, but as Ausaqua stooped toward the bubbling
surface Wacomish crept behind him, flung himself against the hunter,
forced his head beneath the water, and held him there until he was
drowned. As he pulled the dead body from the spring the water became
agitated, and from the bubbles arose a vapor that gradually assumed the
form of a venerable Indian, with long white locks, in whom the murderer
recognized Waukauga, father of the Shoshone and Comanche nation, and a
man whose heroism and goodness made his name revered in both these
tribes. The face of the patriarch was dark with wrath, and he cried, in
terrible tones, "Accursed of my race! This day thou hast severed the
mightiest nation in the world. The blood of the brave Shoshone appeals
for vengeance. May the water of thy tribe be rank and bitter in their
throats."

Then, whirling up an elk-horn club, he brought it full on the head of the
wretched man, who cringed before him. The murderer's head was burst open
and he tumbled lifeless into the spring, that to this day is nauseous,
while, to perpetuate the memory of Ausaqua, the manitou smote a
neighboring rock, and from it gushed a fountain of delicious water. The
bodies were found, and the partisans of both the hunters began on that
day a long and destructive warfare, in which other tribes became involved
until mountaineers were arrayed against plainsmen through all that
region.

BESIEGED BY STARVATION

A hundred years before the white men set up their trading-posts on the
Arkansas and Platte, a band of mountain hunters made a descent on what
they took to be a small company of plainsmen, but who proved to be the
enemy in force, and who, in turn, drove the Utes--for the aggressors were
of that tribe--into the hills. Most of them took refuge on a castellated
rock on the south side of Bowlder Canon, where they held their own for
several days, rol