SHOSHONE LAND 



shrubs good for firewood with the sap in 

 them. The mesquite bean, whether the 

 screw or straight pod, pounded to a meal, 

 boiled to a kind of mush, and dried in 

 cakes, sulphur-colored and needing an axe 

 to cut it, is an excellent food for long jour- 

 neys. Fermented in water with wild honey 

 and the honeycomb, it makes a pleasant, 

 mildly intoxicating drink. 



Next to spring, the best time to visit 

 Shoshone Land is when the deer-star hangs 

 low and white like a torch over the morn- 

 ing hills. Go up past Winnedumah and 

 down Saline and up again to the rim of 

 Mesquite Valley. Take no tent, but if you 

 will, have an Indian build you a wickiup, 

 willows planted in a circle, drawn over to 

 an arch, and bound cunningly with withes, 

 all the leaves on, and chinks to count the 

 stars through. But there was never any 

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