SHOSHONE LAND 



in his heart despised them. But he could 

 speak a tolerable English when he would, 

 and he always would if it were of Shoshone 

 Land. 



He had come into the keeping of the 

 Paiutes as a hostage for the long peace 

 which the authority of the whites made 

 interminable, and, though there was now 

 no order in the tribe, nor any power that 

 could have lawfully restrained him, kept 

 on in the old usage, to save his honor and 

 the word of his vanished kin. He had 

 seen his children's children in the borders 

 of the Paiutes, but loved best his own 

 miles of sand and rainbow-painted hills. 

 Professedly he had not seen them since 

 the beginning of his hostage ; but every 

 year about the end of the rains and before 

 the strength of the sun had come upon us 

 from the south, the medicine-man went 

 84 



