Shoshones; they delighted too much in a life of wild and perilous
adventure to leave it so soon, and the Irishman vowed that if he ever
returned within the pale of civilization, it would be to Monterey, the
only place where, in his long wanderings, he had found a people
congenial to his own ideas.

When, in the meeting of a great council, I apprised the tribe of the
attack made upon the boat-house by the Umbiquas, and of its results,
there was a loud burst of satisfaction. I was made a War-Chief on the
spot; and it was determined that a party should immediately proceed to
chastise the Umbiquas. My father did not allow me to join it, as there
was much to be done in settling the affairs of the Prince, and paying
the debts he had contracted at Fort Hall; consequently, I led a clerk's
life for two months, writing accounts, &c.--rather a dull occupation,
for which I had not the smallest relish. During this time, the
expedition against the Umbiquas had been still more successful than that
against the Crows, and, in fact, that year was a glorious one for the
Shoshones, who will remember it a long while, as a period in which
leggings and moccasins were literally sewn with human hair, and in which
the blanched and unburied bones of their enemies, scattered on the
prairie, scared even the wolves from crossing the Buena Ventura. Indeed,
that year was so full of events, that my narration would be too much
swelled if I were to enumerate them all.

I had not forgotten the cachette at our landing-place. Every thing was
transferred to the boat-house, and the hot days of summer having already
begun to render the settlement unpleasant, we removed to the sea-shore,
while the major part of the tribe went to hunt in the rolling prairies
of the south.