Manitou did not order it. When this sun will have disappeared behind the
salt-water, I shall no longer be a chief! Owato Wanisha will guide our
warriors, he will preside in council, for two gods are with him--the
Manitou of the Pale-faces and the Manitou of the Red-skins.

"Hear my words, Shoshones! I shall soon join my father and grandfather
in the happy lands, for I am old! Yet, before my bones are buried at the
foot of the hills, it would brighten my heart to see the glory of the
Shoshones, which I know must be in a short time. Hear my words! Long
ages ago some of our children, not finding our hunting-grounds wide
enough for the range-of their arrows, left us. They first wandered in
the south, and in the beautiful prairies of the east, under a climate
blessed by the good spirits. They grew and grew in number till their
families were as numerous as ours, and as they were warriors and their
hearts big, they spread themselves, and, soon crossing the big
mountains, their eagle glance saw on each side of their territory the
salt-water of the sunrise and the salt-water of the sunset. These are
the Comanches, a powerful nation. The Comanches even now have a Shoshone
heart, a Shoshone tongue. Owato Wanisha has been with them; he says they
are friends, and have not forgotten that they are the children of the
Great Serpent.

"Long, long while afterwards, yet not long enough that I should escape
the memory and the records of our holy men, some other of our children,
hearing of the power of the Comanches of their wealth, of their
beautiful country, determined also to leave us and spread to the south.
These are the Apaches From the top of the big mountains, always covered
with snow they look towards the bed of the sun. They see the green grass
of the prairie below them, and afar the blue salt-water Their houses are
as numerous as the stars in heaven, their warriors as thick as the