[Footnote 4: Two priests, literally two black gowns.]

"He is right; the Shoshones must have their lodges full of corn and
tobacco. The Shoshones must ever be what they are, what they were, a
great nation. But the chief of many winters hath said it; the hedge-hogs
and the foxes may dig the earth, but the eyes of the Shoshones are
always turned towards their enemies in the woods, or the buffaloes in
the plains."

"Yet the will of Nanawa must be done, but not by a Shoshone. We will
give him plenty of squaws and dogs; we will bring him slaves from the
Umbiquas, the Cayuses, and the Wallah Wallahs. They shall grow the corn
and the tobacco while we hunt; while we go to fetch more slaves, even in
the big mountains, or among the dogs of the south, the Wachinangoes. I
will send the vermilion[5] to my young warriors, they will paint their
faces and follow me on the war-path. I have spoken!"

[Footnote 5: When a chief wishes to go to war, he sends to his warriors
some leaves of tobacco covered with vermilion. It is a sign that they
must soon be prepared.]

Thus ended the hopes of making agriculturists of the wild people among
whom we lived; nor did I wonder; such as they were, they felt happy.
What could they want besides their neat conical skin lodges, their
dresses, which were good, comfortable, and elegant, and their women, who
were virtuous, faithful, and pretty? Had they not the unlimited range of
the prairies? were they not lords over millions of elks and
buffaloes?--they wanted nothing, except tobacco. And yet it was a pity
we could not succeed in giving them a taste for civilization. They were
gentlemen by nature; as indeed almost all the Indians are, when not