e successful than
that against the Crows; and, in fact, that year was a glorious one for
the Shoshones, who will remember it a long while, as a period in which
leggings and mocassins were literally sewn with human hair, and in which
the blanched and unburied bones of their enemies, scattered on the
prairie, scared even the wolves from crossing the Buona Ventura.
Indeed, that year was so full of events, that my narration would be too
much swelled if I were to enumerate them all.

I had not forgotten the cachette at our landing-place. Every thing was
transferred to the boat-house, and the hot days of summer having already
begun to render the settlement unpleasant, we removed to the sea-shore,
while the major part of the tribe went to hunt in the rolling prairies
of the south.

The presents of the good people of Monterey proved to be a treat
acquisition to my father. There were many books, which he appropriated
to himself; being now too aged and infirm to bear the fatigues of Indian
life, he had become fond of retirement and reading. As to Gabriel and
Roche, we became inseparable, and though in some points we were not on
an equality, yet the habit of being constantly together and sharing the
same tent united us like brothers.

As my readers will eventually discover, many daring deeds did we perform
together, and many pleasant days did we pass, both in the northern
cities of Mexico and western prairies of Texas, hunting with the
Comanches, and occasionally unmasking some rascally Texians, who, under
the paint of an Indian, would commit their murders and depredations upon
the remote settlements of their own countrymen.

CHAPTER NINE.

In the remarks which I am about to make relative to the Shoshones, I may
as well observe that the same observations will equally apply to the
Comanches, Apaches, and Arrapahoes, as they are but subdivisions and
offsets from the original stock--the Shoshones. The Wakoes, who have
not yet been mentioned, or even seen, by any other travellers, I shall
hereafter describe.

I may as well here observe, that although the Shoshones are always at
peace with the Comanches and Apaches, they had for a long while been at
war with their descendants, the Arrapahoes, as well as the whole of the
Dacotah and Algonquin tribes, as the Crows and Rickarees, Black-feet,
Nez-perces, and others.

First, as to their religion--a question highly interesting, and perhaps
throwing more light upon their orig