At the great council of the
Arrapahoes, the ten girls will be offered to ten great chiefs, and ten
great chiefs will offer their own daughters to our ten young warriors;
they will offer peace for ever; they will exchange all the scalps, and
they will say that their fathers, the Shoshones, will once more open
their arms to their brave children. Our best hunting-ground shall be
theirs; they will fish the salmon of our rivers; they will be Arrapahoes
Shoshones; we will become Shoshones Arrapahoes. I have already sent to
the settlement of the Watchinangoes my ancient Pale-face friend of the
stout heart and keen eye; shortly we will see at the Post a vessel with
arms, ammunition, and presents for the nation. I will go myself with a
party of warriors to the prairies of the Apaches, and among the
Comanches.
"Yet I hear within me a stout voice, which I must obey. My grandfather,
the old chief, has said he should be no more a chief. It was wrong, very
wrong; the Manitou is angry. Is the buffalo less a buffalo when he grows
old, or the eagle less an eagle when a hundred winters have whitened his
wings? No! their nature cannot change, not more than that of a chief and
that chief, a chief of the Shoshones!
"Owato Wanisha will remain what he is; he is too young to be the great
chief of the whole of a great nation.
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