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!