The following is a description of events at a very remote period, which was related by an old Shoshone sage, in their evening encampment in the prairies, during the hunting season:-- "It is a long, long while! when the wild horses were unknown in the country[7], and when the buffalo alone ranged the vast prairies then huge and horrid monsters existed.

The approaches of the mountains and forests were guarded by the evil spirits[8], while the seashore, tenanted by immense lizards,[9] was often the scene of awful conflicts between man, the eldest son of light, and the mighty children of gloom and darkness.

Then, too, the land we now live in had another form; brilliant stones were found in the streams; the mountains had not yet vomited their burning bowels, and the great Master of Life was not angry with his red children.
[Footnote 7: Horses were unknown until the arrival of the Spaniards.] [Footnote 8: Skeletons of the mammoth are often found whole at the foot of the Grand Serpent, a long rugged mountain which runs for 360 miles under the parallel of 40 degrees north latitude.

It extends from the centre of the Shoshone territory to the very country of the Crows, that is to say, from the 119th to the 113th degree west longitude.

It is possible that this race may not have been yet quite extinct in the middle of the 17th century; for, indeed, in their family records, aged warriors will often speak of awful encounters, in which their great-great-grandfathers had fought against the monster.