d
by a severe loss to me. My father, aged as he was, had shown a great
deal of activity during the last assault, and he had undergone much
privation and fatigue: his high spirit sustained him to the very last of
the struggle; but when all was over, and the reports of the rifles no
longer whizzed to his ears, his strength gave way, and, ten days after
the last conflict, he died of old age, fatigue, and grief. On the
borders of the Pacific Ocean, a few miles inland, I have raised his
grave. The wild flowers that grow upon it are fed by the clear waters
of the Nu eleje sha wako, and the whole tribe of the Shoshones will long
watch over the tomb of the Pale-face from a distant land, who was once
their instructor and their friend.

As for my two friends, Gabriel and Roche, they had been both seriously
wounded, and it was a long time before they were recovered.

We passed the remainder of the summer in building castles in the air for
the future, and at last agreed to go to Monterey to pass the winter.
Fate, however, ordered otherwise, and a succession of adventures, the
current of which I could not oppose, forced me through many wild scenes
and countries, which I have yet to describe.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

At the beginning of the fall, a few months after my father's death, I
and my two comrades, Gabriel and Roche, were hunting in the rolling
prairies of the South, on the eastern shores of the Buona Ventura. One
evening we were in high spirits, having had good sport. My two friends
had entered upon a theme which they could never exhaust; one pleasantly
narrating the wonders and sights of Paris, the other describing with his
true native eloquence the beauties of his country, and repeating the old
local Irish legends, which appeared to me quaint and highly poetical.

Of a sudden we were surrounded by a party of sixty Arrapahoes; of
course, resistance or flight was useless. Our captors, however, treated
us with honour, contenting themselves with watching us closely and
preventing our escape. They knew who we were, and, though my horse,
saddle, and rifle were in themselves a booty for any chief, nothing was
taken from us. I addressed the chief, whom I knew:

"What have I done to the Morning Star of the Arrapahoes, that I should
be taken and watched like a sheep of the Watchinangoes?"

The chief smiled and put his hand upon my shoulders. "The Arrapahoes,"
said he, "love the young Owato Wanisha and his pale-faced bro