distance from the road, and moaned as if in the greatest pain. The good
and kind-hearted Indian having reached the spot, heard his cries of
distress, dismounted from his mare, and offered any assistance: it was
nearly dark, and although he knew the sufferer to be a Pale-face, yet he
could not distinguish his features. The Mexican begged for a drop of
water, and the Indian dashed into a neighbouring thicket to procure it
for him. As soon as the Indian was sufficiently distant, the Mexican
vaulted upon the mare, and apostrophized the Indian:--

"You fool of a Red-skin, not cunning enough for a Mexican: you refused
my gold; now I have the mare for nothing, and I will make the trappers
laugh when I tell them how easily I have outwitted a Shoshone."

The Indian looked at the Mexican for a few moments in silence, for his
heart was big, and the shameful treachery wounded him to the very core.
At last, he spoke:--

"Pale-face," said he, "for the sake of others, I may not kill thee. Keep
the mare, since thou art dishonest enough to steal the only property of
a poor man; keep her, but never say a work how thou earnest by her, lest
hereafter a Shoshone, having learned distrust, should not hearken to the
voice of grief and woe. Away, away with her! let me never see her again,
or in an evil hour the desire of vengeance may make a bad man of me."

The Mexican was wild, inconsiderate, and not over-scrupulous, but not
without feeling: he dismounted from the horse, and putting the bridle in
the hand of the Shoshone, "Brother," said he, "I have done wrong, pardon
me! from an Indian I learn virtue, and for the future, when I would
commit any deed of injustice, I will think of thee."