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.
Pages:
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347