ded with the Spaniards, endeavored, but in vain, to
obtain similar weapons; the Spanish traders wisely refused to arm
them so formidably. The Blackfeet had now a vast advantage, and soon
dispossessed the poor Snakes of their favorite hunting grounds, their
land of plenty, and drove them from place to place, until they were fain
to take refuge in the wildest and most desolate recesses of the Rocky
Mountains. Even here they are subject to occasional visits from their
implacable foes, as long as they have horses, or any other property to
tempt the plunderer. Thus by degrees the Snakes have become a scattered,
broken-spirited, impoverished people; keeping about lonely rivers and
mountain streams, and subsisting chiefly upon fish. Such of them as
still possess horses, and occasionally figure as hunters, are called
Shoshonies; but there is another class, the most abject and forlorn, who
are called Shuckers, or more commonly Diggers and Root Eaters. These are
a shy, secret, solitary race, who keep in the most retired parts of the
mountains, lurking like gnomes in caverns and clefts of the rocks, and
subsisting in a great measure on the roots of the earth. Sometimes,
in passing through a solitary mountain valley, the traveller comes
perchance upon the bleeding carcass of a deer or buffalo that has just
been slain. He looks round in vain for the hunter; the whole landscape
is lifeless and deserted: at length he perceives a thread of smoke,
curling up from among the crags and cliffs, and scrambling to the place,
finds some forlorn and skulking brood of Diggers, terrified at being
discovered.

The Shoshonies, however, who, as has been observed, have still "horse to
ride and weapon to wear," are somewhat bolder in their spirit, and more
open and wide in their wanderings. In the autumn, when salmon disappear
from the rivers, and hunger begins to pinch, they even venture down into
their ancient hunting grounds, to make a foray among the buffaloes. In
this perilous enterprise they are occasionally joined by the Flatheads,
the persecutions of the Blackfeet having produced a close alliance
and cooperation between these luckless and maltreated tribes. Still,
notwithstanding their united force, every step they take within the
debatable ground is taken in fear and trembling, and with the utmost
precaution: and an Indian trader assures us that he has seen at least
five hundred of them, armed and equipped for action, and keeping watch
upon t