e same nest? No. Yet numerous
stars appear during night all joined together and obedient to the moon.
Blackbirds and parrots will unite their numerous tribes, and take the
same flight to seek all together a common rest and shelter for a night;
it is a law of nature. The Red-skin knows none but the laws of nature.
The Shoshone is an eagle on the hills, a bright sun in the prairie, so
is an Arrapahoe; they must both struggle and fight till one sun is
thrown into darkness, or one eagle, blind and winged, falls down the
rocks and leaves the whole nest to its conqueror. The Arrapahoes would
not fight a cowardly Crow except for self-defence, for he smells of
carrion; nor would a Shoshone.
"Crows, Umbiquas, and Flat-heads, Cayuses, Bonnaxes, and Callapoos can
hunt all together, and rest together; they are the blackbirds and the
parrots; they must do so, else the eagle should destroy them during the
day, or the hedgehog during the night.
"Now, Owato Wanisha, or his Manitou, has offered a bold thing. I have
thought of it, I have spoken of it to the spirits of the Red-skin; they
said it was good; I say it is good! I am a chief of many winters; I
know what is good, I know what is bad! Shoshones, hear me! my voice is
weak, come nearer; hearken to my words, hist! I hear a whisper under
the ripples of the water, I hear it in the waving of the grass, I feel
it on the breeze!--hist, it is the whisper of the Master of Life,--
hist!"
At this moment the venerable chief appeared abstracted, his face
flushed; then followed a trance, as if he were communing with some
invisible spirit. Intensely and silently did the warriors watch the
struggles of his noble features; the time had come in which the minds of
the Shoshones were freed of their prejudices, and dared to contemplate
the prospective of a future general domination over the western
continent of America. The old chief raised his hand, and he spoke
again:--
"Children, for you are my children! Warriors, for you are all brave!
Chiefs, for you are all chiefs! I have seen a vision. It was a cloud,
and the Manitou was upon it. The cloud gave way; and behind I saw a
vast nation, large cities, rich wigwams, strange boats, and great
parties of warriors, whose trail was so long that I could not see the
beginning nor the end. It was in a country which I felt within me was
extending from the north, where all is ice, down to the south, where all
is fire! Then a big voice was
|