Rides through the forests, and canters over the grassy meadows
with her beloved Miguel, are her chiefest pleasures. Some little
trading brings in the Indians of the Sierras. It amuses the young
Donna to see the bartering of game, furs, forest nuts, wild fruits
and fish for the simple stores of the rancho. No warlike cavaliers
of the plains are these, with Tartar blood in their veins, from
Alaskan migration or old colonization. They have not the skill and
mysterious arts of the Aztecs.
These Piute Indians are the lowest order of indigenous tree dwellers.
They live by the chase. Without manufactures, with no language,
no arts, no agriculture, no flocks or herds, these wretches, clad
in the skins of the minor animals, are God's meanest creatures.
They live on manzanita berry meal, pine-nuts, and grasshoppers.
Bows and flint-headed arrows are their only weapons. They snare
the smaller animals. The defenceless deer yield to their stealthy
tracking. The giant grizzly and panther affright them. They cannot
battle with "Ursus ferox."
Unable to cope with the Mexican intruders, these degraded tribes
are also an easy prey to disease. They live without general
intercourse, and lurk in the foothills, or hide in the canons.
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