The excitement caused in 1858 by the alleged discovery of gold in the vicinity of Pike's Peak created a fever among the people of the United States, and there was a mighty exodus from everywhere east of the Missouri, similar to that to the Alaskan regions to-day.

The Missouri River was at that time the western terminal of the few railroads then in existence, and there was very little probability that they would make farther progress toward the setting sun. The individual who had determined to start for the new, but delusive, western mountainous El Dorado, must perforce make his wearisome journey by slowly plodding ox- teams, pack-mules, or the lumbering stage-coach. Such means of travel had just been inaugurated by Mr. W. H. Russell (then the senior partner of the firm of Russell, Majors, Waddell) and a Mr. John S. Jones of Missouri, who conceived the idea of putting on a line of coaches between the Missouri River and Denver—the latter place a mere mushroom hamlet, just struggling into existence, and whose future as yet no man could predict with any degree of certainty.

It was a bold undertaking, for they had to purchase all their equipage on credit, giving their notes payable in three months. One thousand large Kentucky mules were bought, and a sufficient number of coaches to supply the proposed route with a daily line each way.

There was already a semi-monthly line operated by Messrs. Hockaday and Liggett, running from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Salt Lake City. This line was poorly appointed. It consisted of a limited number of light, cheap vehicles, with but few animals to draw them. The same team was used for hundreds of miles, as no stations had been established on the long route. The teams were turned out to graze, and were obliged to stop often for that purpose. It sometimes required twenty-one days to make the trip from St. Joseph to Salt Lake.

Under the new regime of Russell Jones, the coaches made their daily trips in six days to Denver, travelling about one hundred miles every twenty- four hours. The first stage arrived in Denver on the 17th of May, 1859, and its advent was regarded as a great success by those who knew nothing of the immense expense attending the enterprise. When the ninety-day notes given in payment for the outfit of the new route became due, the money was not forthcoming, and it became necessary for the wealthy firm of Russell, Majors, Waddell[34] to meet the outstanding obligations of the delinquent Russell Jones. To save the credit of their senior partner the firm had to pay the debts of the defunct concern, and take possession of all the mules, coaches, and other belongings of the stage-line to secure themselves for the amount they had advanced in establishing the Denver route.

In a few months the firm bought out the semi-monthly line of Hockaday and Liggett, believing that by uniting the two companies the business might be brought up to a paying standard, at least meet the expenses if nothing more.

As soon as Russell, Majors, Waddell took hold of the line, the time between St. Joseph and Salt Lake, a distance of twelve hundred miles, was reduced to ten days. The coach ran daily both ways, and stations were established at distances varying from ten to fifteen miles along the whole route.

The original trail ran up the valley of the Smoky Hill, or the Smoky Hill Fork of the Republican,[35] but was shortly after changed to the valley of the Platte, and starting from St. Joseph,[36] went on to Fort Kearney, thence following the river to Julesburg, where it crossed the stream. From there to Fort Laramie, to Fort Bridger, thence to Salt Lake, through Camp Floyd, Ruby Valley, Carson City, Placerville, and Folsom to Sacramento.[37]

The old-line coach was a grand swinging and swaying vehicle, an imposing cradle on wheels, and hung on thoroughbraces instead of springs. It was drawn by six handsome horses or mules, which were changed every ten miles on the average; and they fairly flew over the level road. Baggage was limited to twenty-five pounds, which, with the care of the passengers, mail, and express, was in charge of the conductor, who was the legitimate captain of the strange craft in its long journey across the continent. He sat beside the driver on the box, and both of them used to sleep in their places thirty or forty minutes at a time, while spinning along on good roads at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour.

Over each two hundred and fifty miles of road an agent was installed, and was invested with great authority. His geographical jurisdiction was known as a "division," and his duty consisted in purchasing horses, mules, harness, and the food for both men and animals. He distributed these things at the different stage-stations when, according to his judgment, they needed them. He also had charge of the erection of all buildings and the water-supply, usually wells. He also paid the station-keepers, hostlers, drivers, and blacksmiths, and he engaged and discharged whomsoever he pleased; in fact, he was a great man in his division, and generally a man of more than average intelligence.

The conductor's tour of duty was about the same length as the agent's, or about two hundred and fifty miles. He sat with the driver, and often, when necessary, rode that great distance all night and all day without other rest or sleep than that he could obtain while in his seat on top of the flying coach. Drivers went back over the same route—over exactly the same length of road, and naturally became so familiar with it that the darkest night had no terrors for them.

The distance from St. Joseph to Sacramento by the stage-coach route was nearly nineteen hundred miles. The trip was often made in fifteen days, but the time specified by the mail contracts, and required by the government schedule, was limited to nineteen days. This was to give ample allowance for possible winter storms and snows, or other causes of detention.

The stage company had everything in their charge under the most rigid discipline, and the system was as nearly perfect as possible.

The enterprise, financially, was a losing one for the great firm which organized and operated it, the entire expense exceeding the receipts by many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Messrs. Russell, Majors, Waddell, however, continued its operation until March, 1862, when the whole concern was transferred to Ben Holliday.[38]

When Holliday took charge, the United States mail was given to it and immediately the line became a paying institution. The government expended, in quarterly payments, eight hundred thousand dollars a year for transporting the mails from the Missouri River to San Francisco.

It was very fortunate for the government and the people generally that the stage-line was organized at the time it was, and kept in such perfect condition on the Middle Route, as it was called, when the Civil War commenced, for it would have been impossible to transport mails on the Southern Route, previously patronized by the government. This route ran from San Francisco via Los Angeles, El Paso, and Fort Smith to St. Louis, and the Confederate government would not have allowed it to run through that portion of their country during the war.

During the war there was a vast amount of business, both in mail, express, and passengers, as it was the only practicable line between California and the great states east of the Missouri River.

Under the indefatigable Ben Holliday his stage-coaches penetrated every considerable mining camp in the mountains, and as the government would not, or could not, establish post-offices at these remote points, the stage company became their own postmasters. They conveyed letters in their own official envelopes, first placing thereon a United States stamp. Twenty-five cents was charged for every letter, consequently the revenue from this source was enormous.

Occasionally on the remote plains, or in the fastnesses of the mountains, the proprietor of a little store, where he kept a heterogeneous assortment of such goods as were required by the hardy miners, would constitute himself the postmaster. Of course he charged exorbitant rates for the transmission of the mail to the nearest regular station. It is recorded of one of these self-appointed officials that, although he transported the mail but once a month, he still charged twenty-five cents for each letter. He used an empty barrel for the reception of mail. He cut a hole in the top, and posted above it the following suggestive warning, to all who sent letters from his place: "This is the Post-Office. Shove a quarter through the hole with your letter. We have no use for stamps as I carry the mail."

The business of the old line coach increased with startling rapidity. It aggregated an enormous sum every year. For carrying the mails alone over the whole route, the government paid twelve hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

The drivers of the Overland coaches received from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and their keep. Their wages were graduated by their ability and length of service. Such large salaries were paid because of the great risk run by the brave men, for their duty was a continuously hazardous one.

All classes of men were to be found among these drivers, from the graduate of Yale and Harvard to the desperado deep-dyed in his villainy. The latter sometimes enlisted in the work for the sole purpose of robbery. The stage with its valuable load of riches and the wealth of its passengers excited his cupidity.

It is told in the annals of those troublous times on the Old Trail, how once, in July, 1865, a coach loaded with seven passengers and an immense amount of gold bullion and other treasure was sacrificed to these robbers. The passengers were all frontier men, well used to the contingencies of that trying era; they were also aware of the strong probability of the coach being attacked before it reached its destination, and were prepared to repel any premeditated attempt of that character. All were fully armed, principally with double-barrelled guns loaded with twenty-six buckshot, a formidable charge with which to plug a man. They were determined that their hard-earned wealth should not be taken from them without a struggle. They watched in turns for the first demonstration of the road agents, having made up their minds to get the first crack at the thieves.

The driver was known as Frank Williams, and the man who occupied the post of honour, sitting at his right on the box, was one of the would-be robbers. On arriving at a very lonely spot on the trail, this individual on top cried out that the robbers were upon them, and a hurried shot was fired from the outside. At the same moment the men inside discharged their pieces. A regular volley was then shot at the passengers from an ambush alongside the trail, four fell dead, another was severely wounded in three places, and one saved his life by lying perfectly still and feigning death as the thieves emerged from the brush to fire a second time. One of the other passengers was mortally wounded and the other escaped uninjured by secreting himself in the brush which fringed the trail.

It seems that the driver had purposely engaged in the service of the company for just such an opportunity as this, and he deliberately drove his coach into this sequestered spot where the robbers were to attack it by appointment. It is alleged that he received his share of the spoils, and then left the service incontinently. His ill-gotten wealth, however, did him very little good; for he was tracked to Denver, and hanged with that sudden promptness for which "Judge Lynch's Court" is noted, a court that brooks no delay in the execution of its decisions, and from which there is no appeal.

Over seventy thousand dollars was the harvest of this raid, but none of the robbers were ever caught excepting the driver, upon whom, as stated, a well-merited punishment was inflicted.

During the Civil War his route passed through the Sioux country, a tribe that was at war with the whites, and as there were not enough troops to protect the line, it was changed from South Pass to Bridger's Pass on the Bitter Creek route, or as it was then known, "The Cherokee Trail."

The mail-line was often attacked by Indians, who killed the employees and passengers, robbed and burnt the stations, and stole the stock.

Early in the year 1862 the Indians made continuous raids on the coaches and stations between Fort Laramie and the South Pass. In April of that year a terrible battle occurred between the mail-stage and the Indians on the Sweetwater River near Split Rock, or Devil's Creek. The white party consisted of nine men with two coaches loaded with mail. They were in charge of Lem Flowers, the division agent, and Jimmie Brown, the conductor. The Indians began the attack at early dawn and the white men were so harassed that they were compelled to run the two coaches alongside of each other, pile the mail-sacks between the wheels, and throw sand over them for breastworks. From this barricade they fought the savages the whole day, but they lost all the stock, and six of the men were wounded. Several Indians were killed during the fight, and when night came on they withdrew. Under cover of the darkness the men took the front wheels of the running-gear of the coaches, put the wounded upon them, and, drawing it themselves, made their escape to the station of the Three Crossings of the Sweetwater River.

One of the employees who passed over the route shortly after the fight and visited the scene of the battle in company with the notorious Slade, who was then division agent, says: "The coaches were still standing as they were placed by the party in the fight, completely riddled with bullets and arrows. Every vestige of leather straps and cushions was stripped off, the mail-sacks cut open, their contents thrown out, and the sacks themselves carried off. Valuable letters, drafts, and bills for large amounts were scattered all over the ground. This mail was gathered up by the employees, put in gunny sacks, hauled to Julesburg, and from there forwarded to the Post-Office Department at Washington."

Another memorable raid was made by the savages on the old line mail-route on Sunday, the 7th of August, 1864. It was a simultaneous attack on that portion of the line extending over two hundred miles from Julesburg eastwardly to Liberty Farm, at the head of the Little Blue River. The mail- coaches, the stations, travelling freight caravans, ranches, and parties putting up hay were alike attacked. Forty people were killed, many ranches and trains burned, much stock and other property stolen and destroyed in that eventful raid.

At last the raids of the savages along the North Platte had become so frequent, and the duty so hazardous, that it was almost impossible for the Overland Stage Company to find drivers, although the highest wages were offered. At this juncture W. F. Cody decided to turn stage-driver and his services were gladly accepted.

While driving a stage between Split Rock and Three Crossings, he was set upon by a band of several hundred Sioux. Lieutenant Flowers, assistant division agent, sat on the box beside Cody, and there were half a dozen passengers well armed inside. Cody gave the reins to Flowers, applied the whip, and the passengers defended the stage in a running fight. Arrows fell around and struck the stage like hail, wounding the horses and dealing destruction generally, for two of the passengers were killed and Flowers badly wounded. Cody seized the whip from the wounded officer, applied it savagely, shouting defiance, and drove on to Three Crossings, thus saving the stage.

The only period when the long route up the Platte Valley enjoyed an immunity from the continuous trouble with the savages, before the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad, was when General Albert Sidney Johnston's army, in 1857, had been mobilized for the impending Mormon war. More than five thousand regular soldiers, with its large commissary trains and their complement of teamsters, all well armed, together with batteries of artillery, in passing through the country so intimidated the Indians, who had never before seen such an array of their enemies, that they remained at a respectful distance from the trail.

In the spring of 1865 the Indians seemed more determined than ever to wage a relentless war along the line of the Overland Stage.

A regular army officer in his journal says:—

     During the time when we were guarding Ben Holliday's
     stage-coaches, and when attacks on them were of frequent
     occurrence, I had an adventure which I think is worth relating. 

     I was out at one of the lower ranches, and the Indians were
     very troublesome. Our guards were nearly all sick or wounded,
     and the coaches had to go out insufficiently protected. 

     One evening the coach was late, and, as to be behind time was
     a sure sign that something was wrong, we all felt very uneasy.
     The drivers made it a rule to get from one station to another
     on time, and if they did not arrive, parties were immediately
     started out to the next ranch, ten miles below, to see what
     the matter was, the stations being eight, ten, and twelve
     miles apart. 

     On the particular evening in question I had got tired of
     waiting, and gone over to the stable-keeper to see if we had
     not better take the change horses, go down the road, and try
     if we could not find the coach. It was due at the station at
     eight-thirty in the evening, and it was now ten, so I was
     confident it had been attacked or broken down. While we were
     talking, the sentinel on the outpost, whose business it was
     to look out for the stage and give notice of its approach,
     signalled that the coach was coming. We all ran down the
     road to meet it, and soon saw it coming slowly along with
     three horses instead of four, and the driver driving very
     slowly, as if he were going to a funeral, or hauling wounded. 

     When we came up to the coach we learned that he was indeed
     both conveying a corpse and wounded. On the arrival of the
     party at the ranch, Captain Hancock, who was a passenger,
     related to me all that had happened, and I repeat the story
     as it fell from his lips. 

     "We were," said the captain, "driving along smartly in the
     bottom, about four miles below, when, just as we crossed
     a little ravine, some twenty Indians jumped out of the long
     grass and fired on us. The first volley killed Mr. Cinnamon,
     a telegraph operator, who was a passenger, on his way from
     Plum Creek to some point up the river. He was riding on the
     box with the driver when he received the fatal shot, and the
     driver caught his body just as it was falling forward off the
     coach on the rear horses. He put Cinnamon's corpse in the
     front boot among the mail bags, where it now is. 

     "The first fire had also killed our nigh wheeler, and, as the
     coach was going pretty fast at the time, the horse was dragged
     a considerable distance, and his hind leg becoming fast
     between the spokes of the fore wheel, his body was drawn up
     against the bed of the coach and all further progress
     completely blocked. 

     "The driver took it very coolly, first swearing fearfully at
     the Indians, toward whom he cracked his whip repeatedly,
     as if flaying their naked backs, and then, having vented his
     spleen, he quietly descended from his box and stripped the
     harness off the dead horse. 

     "Meanwhile the Indians had been circling around us, firing
     into the coach every few minutes, and I had got under the
     wagon with my clerks, the better to be protected and to fire
     at the Indians, who could be seen best from the ground as
     they moved against the horizon. 

     "The driver tried in vain to extricate the leg of the dead
     horse from the wheel, but it was firmly wedged in, and after
     uniting my strength to his, I found it necessary to take my
     knife and amputate the leg at the knee-joint. The body was
     at length removed, and mounting the box, the driver bid us
     get in, and we were off once more. One of the clerks had been
     severely wounded, and, as his wound was quite painful, we had
     to drive very slowly; so we were late in getting in." 

     While the captain was talking, the driver came to the door
     to say the coach was waiting, for on the Plains stages stop
     not for accidents or dead men. I bade my friend good-night,
     hoping he would not again be interrupted on his journey by
     the redskins, and, the driver cracking his whip, the four
     fresh bays bounded forward at a gallop, and soon carried the
     coach out of sight of the valley. 

     Next day we buried poor Cinnamon, and sent the wounded man to
     McPherson, where he could have medical attendance, and we were
     pleased to learn he speedily recovered. 

     I rode down to where the coach had been attacked, and saw the
     dead horse and the ravine from which the Indians had sprung.
     The fight had evidently been a sharp one, and I could see by
     the trail that the savages had followed the coach nearly to
     the ranch, and then struck across toward the Republican,
     never stopping, in all probability, until they reached it,
     ninety miles distant. 

An idea may be formed of the immense proportions to which the old mail- line service had grown, when in November, 1866, Ben Holliday sold out his interest to Wells, Fargo, Company. The main line and its branches were transferred for one million five hundred thousand dollars in cash, and three hundred thousand dollars in the stock of the Express Company. This vast sum only covered the animals, rolling stock, stations, etc., but in addition to this, the Express Company was to pay the full value of the grain, hay, and provisions on hand at the time of the transfer, and this amounted to nearly six hundred thousand dollars.

The old line of mail-service continued until its usefulness was gradually usurped by the completion of the Union and Central Pacific railroads. The coaches started daily from the eastern and western terminals of the rapidly approaching iron trail, the gap between them lessening until on the day of driving the last spike with the junction of the rails the old stage-line through the Platte Valley had vanished forever.

From the earliest westward march of civilization, the beautiful valley of the Platte, through which the Salt Lake Trail coursed its way, has been a grand pathway to the mountains, and thence over their snow-capped summits to the golden shores of the Pacific Ocean.

In a little more than a third of a century, through the agency of that grandest of civilizers, the locomotive, the charming and fertile valley has been carved into prosperous commonwealths, whose development from an almost desert waste is a marvellous monument to the restless energy of the American people, and of their power to conquer the wilderness.

In 1842 Lieutenant John C. Fremont travelled up the Blue, on his first exploring expedition, and arrived in the Platte at Grand Island, where the party separated, a portion proceeding up the North Fork of the river, toward Laramie, and another up the South Fork. The following year the great pathfinder ventured on a second expedition by the way of the Kansas and Republican rivers, reaching the Platte at the mouth of Beaver Creek.

In 1847 the Platte Valley became the highway of the Mormons in their wonderful exodus from Illinois to Utah, and ten years later the trails made by that remarkable sect were followed by the rush of pioneers to the newly discovered gold fields of California.

Twelve years later, the beautiful valley was traversed by a greater rush of adventurers than ever before in its history. In the summer of 1850 Mr. Green Russell and his adventurous companions discovered gold on a tributary of the Platte. The report spread so rapidly that the greatest excitement at once developed on the frontier of Missouri, which was then the boundary between civilization and the unknown Far West. In the following spring the exodus to the gold fields began. The old overland route was famed for its picturesque scenery, but as the weary traveller slowly trod the dangerous trail, he was too often in constant dread of attacks by the blood-thirsty savages to allow his mind to dwell upon the details of the magnificent landscape. To-day, however, as the same route is practically shod with iron, the tourist, from the windows of his car on the Union Pacific, may safely contemplate the historic valley. Its beautiful towns and hamlets, its cultivated plains, its watercourses, its skyward-reaching peaks, may be seen in a security which would have passed the very dreams of a pioneer fifty years ago.

The scenery is sufficiently wild to please the most exacting, even to-day; for its isolated buttes, rocky bluffs, lightning-splintered gorges, foaming torrents, fantastically formed bowlders, and towering mountains brook no change at the hands of puny man, and are as firm as the rock itself. Under a sky that nowhere else seems to be of such an intensely cerulean hue, the charm of the region is intensified.

Before a European ever looked upon it, the Platte Valley was for centuries, in all probability, a gateway to the mountains. The prehistoric mound-builders, perhaps, travelled its lonely course, and on through the portals of the great Continental Divide, to the southern sea. The rude, primitive savage of North America, with whom the hairy mammoth and primeval elephant were contemporary, in a geological epoch, whose distance in the misty past appalls, traversed the silent trail across the continent. He packed on his back the furs of the colder regions, where he lived. He carried copper from the mines on the shores of Lake Superior; the horns of the moose, elk, and deer; robes of the buffalo, the wolf, and kindred animals. Among his merchandise were masses of red pipestone from the sacred quarries east of the Missouri. He journeyed with these treasures to the people of the southwest and exchanged them for what to him were equally precious: brilliant feathers of tropical birds; valuable gems, like the revered turquoise; rare metals; woven fabrics, and other commodities foreign to his own wind-swept and snow-bound plains.

The Platte Valley, for untold ages, was a beautiful, awful wilderness, thronged by stately headed elk, and the resort of vast herds of buffalo, deer, and antelope. Until a few years ago their skulls and bones could still be seen in some localities, scattered thick upon the ground between the bluffs and the river. Now all the game has vanished, excepting, perhaps, a few antelope and deer in some favoured mountain recess, where the white man has not invaded the rocky soil with his plough.

Until fifty years ago the whole region watered by the Platte was regarded as a veritable desert, never to be brought under the domain of agriculture, but forever doomed to a hopeless sterility. Its inhabitants were a wild, merciless horde of savages, whose only aim was murder, and an unceasing warfare against any encroachment upon their domain by the hated palefaces.

The river is very shallow, and for that reason was called by the Otoes, whose country embraced the region at its mouth, the Ne-bras-ka, and re- christened the Platte by the French trappers, a term synonymous to that given by the Indians.

The Platte River, nearly three-quarters of a century ago, was called by Washington Irving,

     The most magnificent and most useless of streams. Abstraction
     made of its defects, nothing can be more pleasing than the
     perspective which it presents to the eye. Its islands have
     the appearance of a labyrinth of groves floating on the waters.
     Their extraordinary position gives an air of youth and
     loveliness to the whole scene. If to this be added the
     undulations of the river, the waving of the verdure, the
     alternations of light and shade, the succession of these
     islands varying in form and beauty, and the purity of the
     atmosphere, some idea may be formed of the pleasing sensations
     which the traveller experiences on beholding a scene that
     seems to have started fresh from the hands of the Creator. 

The valley is wide, and once was covered with luxuriant grass and dotted with many-coloured flowers. For a great distance along its lower portions, the banks were fringed with a heavy growth of cottonwood, willow, and other varieties of timber.

In its solitude at the beginning of the present century, it might properly be claimed as the arena of the tornado and the race course of the winds. Climatic changes, which follow the empire of the plough, have dissipated such atmospheric phenomena as characterized the vast wilderness in its days of absolute isolation from the march of civilization, as they have elsewhere in the central regions of the continent.

The revered Father De Smet, who traversed the then dreary wilderness of the Platte Valley, as long ago as fifty-seven years, thus writes in his letters to the bishop of St. Louis, of a tornado he witnessed:—

     However, it happens sometimes, though but seldom, that the
     clouds, floating with great rapidity, open currents of air
     so violent as suddenly to chill the atmosphere and produce
     the most destructive hailstorms. I have seen some hailstones
     the size of an egg. It is dangerous to be abroad during these
     storms. A Cheyenne Indian was lately struck by a hailstone,
     and remained senseless for an hour.

     Once as the storm raged near us, we witnessed a sublime sight.
     A spiral abyss seemed to be suddenly formed in the air.
     The clouds followed each other into it with great velocity,
     till they attracted all objects around them, whilst such
     clouds as were too large and too far distant to feel its
     influence turned in an opposite direction. The noise we heard
     in the air was like that of a tempest. On beholding the
     conflict, we fancied that all the winds had been let loose
     from the four points of the compass. It is very probable
     that if it had approached nearer, the whole caravan would
     have made an ascension into the clouds. The spiral column
     moved majestically toward the north, and lighted on the
     surface of the Platte. Then another scene was exhibited to
     view. The waters, agitated by its powerful function, began
     to turn round with frightful noise, and were suddenly drawn
     up to the clouds in a spiral form. The column appeared to
     measure a mile in height; and such was the violence of the
     winds, which came down in a perpendicular direction, that in
     the twinkling of an eye the trees were torn and uprooted,
     and their boughs scattered in every direction. But what is
     violent does not last. After a few minutes the frightful
     visitation ceased. The column, not being able to sustain
     the weight at its base, was dissolved almost as quickly
     as it had been formed. 

     In proportion as we proceeded toward the source of this
     wonderful river, the shades of vegetation became more gloomy,
     and the brows of the mountain more craggy. Everything seemed
     to wear the aspect not of decay, but of age, or rather of
     venerable antiquity. 

The broad old Salt Lake Trail to the Rocky Mountains coincided with the Platte River about twenty miles below the head of Grand Island. The island used to be densely wooded, and extended for sixty or seventy miles. The valley at that point is about seven miles wide, and the stream itself, between one and two from bank to bank.

The South Platte was a muddy stream, and with its low banks, scattered flat sand-bars, and pigmy islands, a melancholy river, straggling through the centre of vast prairies, and only saved from being impossible to find with the naked eye by its sentinel trees standing at long distances from each other, on either side.

The Platte of the mountain region scarcely retains one characteristic of the stream far below. Here, it is confined to a bed of rock and sand, not more than two hundred yards wide, and its water is of unwonted clearness and transparency. Its banks are steep and the attrition caused at the time of spring freshets shows a deep vegetable mould reaching far back, making the soil highly fertile. Here, too, the river forces its way through a barrier of tablelands, forming one of those striking peculiarities incident to mountain streams, called by the Spaniards a canyon; that is, a narrow passage between high and precipitous banks, formed by mountains; a common term in the language of the mountaineers describing one of these picturesque breaks through the range.

The scenery of the upper Platte is constantly changing, the river presenting more the appearance of a genuine mountain stream. Its banks are here and there heavily fringed with timber, rich grass grows luxuriantly in the flat bottoms, and the dark bluffs which bound them form a beautiful background, interspersed occasionally by snow-capped peaks.

In little more than the third of a century the vast area of desert-waste comprising the valley of the Platte, and beyond, has been transmuted by that most effective of civilizers the railroad, into great states. On the terra incognita there have appeared large cities and towns, whose genesis is a marvel in the history of nations. Peace has spread her white wings over the bloody sands of the trail, whose sublime silence but a short time since was so often broken by the diabolical whoop of the savage, as he wretched the reeking scalp from the head of his enemy. Where it required many weeks of dangerous, tedious travel to cross the weary pathway to the mountains, now, in all the luxuriance of modern American railway service, the traveller is whirled along at the rate of fifty miles all hour, and where it required many days for the transmission of news, the events of the whole civilized world, as they hourly occur, are flashed from ocean to ocean in a few seconds.

The islands, bluffs, and isolated peaks of the trail have clustering around them many thrilling legends, stories, and events; some of them reaching far backward into the dim light of tradition; others having happened within the memory of men now living. All are strangely characteristic of the region, and are as full of poetry and pathos as the epics of ancient Greece, whose stories are the basis of the literature of the world to-day.

Some traveller, who has visited every picturesque spot on both continents, has truthfully said: "No! Never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery." Nowhere else on the continent is the landscape for such a distance so varied, so distinctly picturesque, beautiful, and sublime, as that which may be viewed from the car windows of the magnificent trains of the Union Pacific Railway. They swiftly course over almost the identical pathway once followed by the overland stage-coach, the pony express, and the slowly plodding ox caravans in the days when the possibility of a transcontinental trail of steel was regarded as a chimera.

Less than a hundred miles from the Missouri River is the famous Loup Fork of the Platte, once celebrated for the great Pawnee Indian village on its south bank, where, long before the white man encroached upon the beautiful region, that once powerful tribe lived in a sort of barbaric splendour. This affluent was so named by the early French-Canadian trappers because of the numerous packs of wolves that haunted the region. Game, consisting of deer, buffalo, antelope, turkeys, and prairie chickens, abounded, while the stream itself was covered with ducks and geese. During the days of travel by the old trail, at the crossing-place was a primitive ferry. The current was always very strong, and when the fork was much swollen, dangerous. The region watered by the Loup Fork is unsurpassed in fertility by any other portion of the valley of the Platte. After crossing the stream, the Union Pacific's track is a perfectly straight line, and when the fields are golden with the harvests, the view from the train is the most marvellous agricultural landscape to be found anywhere on the continent.

A few miles westward, beyond Grand Island, is Wood River, a noted landmark and camping-place for those who followed the tide of immigration to Utah, and to the gold fields of California, in 1849. It was always a pleasant spot, and is now a station on the Union Pacific Railway. As the tourist crosses the bridge over the stream in a palace car, he may look down from his window, and meditate on the brilliancy of the present, and the misty past, with all its adventures and suffering. The march of civilization has made wonderful changes in fifty years. It has forced the Indians, the buffaloes, and the antelopes away from the prairies, and in their places comfortable homes may now be seen on the sites of old camps. The pretty little stream still runs its race to the Platte, and lingering near the bank at the old ford, murmurs its story of the long ago, as the train rushes by.

After passing Grand Island, the next place of importance between the flourishing town of Columbus and North Platte is that known as Brady's.

Brady's Island honours the memory of an old-time trapper, who was brutally murdered by one of his partners in 1847. They were engaged in their vocation as employees of the American Fur Company, on the many tributaries of the Platte, and their camp at the time was on the island that bears the unfortunate man's name. The tradition says that the little coterie of trappers had landed there to pack their accumulation of the season's furs for the market of St. Louis, then the only place where they could be disposed of in the whole West.

The day when everything was about ready for embarkation down the river to the Missouri, in a rude boat which they had constructed of buffalo-hides drawn over a framework of poles, Brady and one of the men were in the camp alone—the others were at work on the bank of the stream. Brady and the one who was left in the camp that morning were ever on bad terms with each other, and more than once had indulged in some severe quarrels.

When the rest of their party returned to the camp preparatory to starting, they found Brady dead, lying in a pool of his own blood. His partner, when questioned as to the cause of his death, affirmed that he was accidentally killed by the premature discharge of his own rifle, which he had been carelessly handling.

The story was not believed by the men, and the cold-blooded murderer escaped lynching by his companions only by the better judgment of the cooler heads of some, who insisted that possibly the tale might be true. The body of the unlucky trapper was buried near the spot where he fell, but was soon dug up by the wolves, and his bones left to bleach in the wintry sun. Portions of them were found eight or ten years afterward by another party of trappers, and when they recognized them as those of a human being, they carefully reinterred them.

The party of trappers, sad at the loss of one of their number, started down the Platte, with their boat-load of furs, but finding the river too shallow to navigate their frail craft, they were compelled to abandon it. They themselves carried what they could of its contents and made the best of their way on foot, two hundred and fifty miles, to the nearest settlement. In a few days their provisions began to run short, and as game became scarce, they separated, after making about one hundred miles of their lonesome journey, each man taking his own trail toward the Missouri. The murderer of Brady happened to be a very indifferent walker, and was soon left many miles behind his comrades.

When the foremost of the party arrived at the Pawnee village, on the Loup Fork of the Platte, they sent back two members of that tribe to bring in the lost man, while they continued on their journey toward the Missouri. A week or more later a small party of trappers belonging to the same fur company, happening to go near the Indian village, were stopped by the head chief, who requested them to go with him, to see a white man who was lying very sick in his teepee.

They complied with the Indian's request, and found the murderer of Brady at the point of death. He confessed to them how Brady came to his end; told of his own sufferings, and believed them to be the justice that was dealt out to him for the unwarranted killing of his partner. He told them, further, that when his companions left him on the road, he had tried to light a fire at night with his pistol, and the charge accidentally entered his thigh bone, tearing it into splinters. In that deplorable condition he was absolutely helpless; to walk was an impossibility. He could hardly move at all, far less dress his wound properly. He managed, by tying a piece of cloth to a stick, to let any passing trapper know where he was lying. He remained there for six days and nights, when at last his ear caught the sound of human voices, and waking up from the stupor which had overcome him from his weakness, to his great delight he discovered two friendly Pawnees leaning over him, their countenances filled with compassion. They gave him some nourishment, tenderly conveyed him to their village, and had kindly cared for him ever since.

He expired while the trappers were conversing with him.

One of the historic places on the left bank of the North Fork of the Platte is Ash Hollow,[39] twelve miles distant from the main stream, famous for a battle between Little Thunder, chief of the Brule Sioux, and the Second Regiment of United States Dragoons, under command of Brevet Brigadier William S. Harney; in which some eighty Indians were slain, and the lives of twelve of our own soldiers lost.

Johnson's Creek was named for a foolish missionary a great many years ago, who was on his way to Oregon, in company with a party of emigrants in charge of John Gray.

As they were breaking camp one morning, a band of Sioux suddenly charged out of the hills, and preparations were immediately made by Mr. Gray and his men to repel them. Against such a course as this Mr. Johnson loudly protested. He declared that it would be a terrible outrage to shed innocent blood, and as the savages neared the camp, he marched out to meet them and have a talk, notwithstanding that he was told by his companions that the Indians would not listen to him for a moment, but would take his scalp.

The deluded fool really believed that the savages would not harm him, because he was a missionary, and had ventured out among them to do their race good. Of course he fell a victim to his own ridiculous credulity; for the moment the Indians came close enough, they incontinently murdered him, and his hair was dangling at the belt of one of the warriors before Johnson had a chance to put in a word.

In the fight which ensued three of the Indians were killed, and were, with the mangled remains of the unfortunate missionary, buried in one grave.

Independence Rock is an isolated mass of clear granite, located a few hundred yards from the right bank of the Sweetwater. Its base covers an area of nearly five acres, and rises to a height of about three hundred feet. There is a slight depression on its summit, otherwise the rock would be nearly oval in shape. In the early days of the trail, a little soil, which had probably been drifted into the depression mentioned, supported a few sickly shrubs and one dwarf tree.

The front face of this ancient landmark, like that of Pawnee Rock, on the old Santa Fe Trail, is covered with the names of trappers, traders, emigrants, and other men who supposed that their rude carvings would immortalize them.

The rock derives its patriotic name from the fact that many years ago one of the first party of Americans who crossed the continent by the way of the Platte Valley, under the leadership of a man named Thorp, celebrated their Fourth of July at the foot of the now historic mass of granite.

The most prominent inscription on the face of the rock is Independence. Father De Smet, the celebrated Jesuit priest, says of it in his letters to the bishop of St. Louis, in 1841:

     The first rock which we saw, and which truly deserves the name,
     was the famous rock Independence. At first I was led to
     believe that it had received this pompous name from its
     isolated situation and the solidity of its basis; but I was
     afterward told that it was called so because the first
     travellers who thought of giving it a name arrived at it on
     the very day when the people of the United States celebrate
     the anniversary of their separation from Great Britain.
     We reached this spot on the day that immediately succeeds this
     celebration. We had in our company a young Englishman,
     as jealous of the honour of his nation as the Americans;
     hence we had a double reason not to cry hurrah, for
     Independence. Still, on the following day, lest it might be
     said that we passed this lofty monument of the desert with
     indifference, we cut our names on the south side of the rock,
     under initials (I. H. S.) which we would wish to see engraved
     on every spot. On account of all these names, and of the
     dates that accompany them, as well as of the hieroglyphics
     of Indian warriors, I have surnamed this rock "The Great
     Record of the Desert." 

As is the case with nearly all of the prominent bluffs, mountains, and isolated peaks in the romantic valley, Independence Rock has its Indian legend. The story as told by an old warrior is this:—

     A great many years ago, long before any white man had looked
     upon the valley of the Upper Platte, the chief of the Pawnees,
     whose big villages extended for some distance along that
     river, was known as the Crouching Panther. He was one of the
     bravest warriors that the famous Pawnee nation had ever
     produced; large in stature, powerful in his strength, yet as
     lithe and quick as the animal from which he derived his name.
     He was beloved by his tribe, and none of his many warriors
     could compete with him for an instant in all the manly games
     which afford the amusements of the savages, nor with him in
     the chase after the buffalo or the more fleet antelope.
     His prowess, too, in battle was far beyond that of any of the
     great warriors which tradition had handed down; yet he was not
     envied by any, for he was of a loving and kind disposition.
     He was equal in feats of horsemanship to the Comanches, which
     nation excels in that particular over all other Plains tribes. 

     In the village there lived a superannuated chief, who
     possessed a daughter considered the handsomest maiden in all
     the region which was watered by the great Platte. She was as
     graceful as an antelope in all her movements, and, as is usual
     in the strange nomenclature of the savages who take their
     cognomens from some characteristic of their nature, she was
     known as the Antelope, because she more resembled that
     graceful animal than any other of the young maidens in her
     tribe. She would flit from rock to rock, when out gathering
     berries, or float down the stream in her birch-bark canoe,
     catching fish for her aged father's meals. Crouching Panther
     had for a long time had his eyes riveted upon the Antelope,
     and would often lie for hours on some high point of rock
     watching the youthful girl as she attended to the cares of
     her lodge. He never returned from a successful hunt without
     sending some choice portion of the buffalo or other animal
     he had killed to the lodge of the Antelope. 

     The arrangements, according to the customs of the tribe, had
     already been made for a wedding of the favourite young savages,
     when on the night preceding the ceremony a party of Sioux,
     the deadly hereditary enemies of the Pawnees, made a night
     assault upon the village, and after a terrible fight carried
     off a number of scalps, and many prisoners, among whom was
     the Antelope. 

     The prisoners were hurried off to one of the remote fastnesses
     of the Sioux up in the mountains, in the vicinity of
     Medicine Bow River, where, as was the custom of the Indians,
     they intended to sacrifice their prisoners by the worst
     methods of torture as ingeniously cruel as they could possibly
     make it. 

     In two days after the return of the warriors to the Sioux
     village was the sacrifice to be made. The friends and
     relatives of the Sioux who had been killed in the assault
     upon the Pawnees were drawn up around the unfortunate captives,
     who were about to be fastened to stakes and stand the terrible
     ordeal of death by fire, when suddenly, like a clap of thunder
     out of a clear sky, the terrible war-whoop of the Pawnees
     sounded in the ears of the now thoroughly frightened Sioux,
     who saw, to their dismay, a band of the dreaded Pawnees led
     by the intrepid Crouching Panther. Dashing down upon them,
     they fought their way to where the prisoners were already
     stoically awaiting their terrible fate, and the Crouching
     Panther, rushing to where the Antelope was standing, after
     killing half a dozen of his foes, caught her up, and throwing
     her before him on his saddle, dashed off with his brave
     little band of followers before the astonished Sioux could
     recover. It was not long before they recovered their presence
     of mind, however, and, enraged by the loss of their prisoners,
     immediately mounted their horses and quickly followed the
     daring Pawnees on the trail. 

     The Sioux outnumbered the Pawnees ten to one, but Crouching
     Panther had just that amount of courage in his nature that
     numbers did not stop him when bent on such a mission, and he
     had proceeded a great way on the trail with his warriors and
     the Antelope toward their native village when they were
     overtaken by a vastly superior force, and a terrible fight
     took place. Many a Sioux did the Crouching Panther send to
     the happy hunting-grounds, notwithstanding that he was
     handicapped by the living burden in front of him on his horse.
     He was near the rock, when he found that all his warriors,
     though having fought bravely, were cut down, and himself alone,
     death staring him in the face, or what was worse, the torture
     for himself and the girl with him. He jumped from his animal
     with the now fainting maiden in his arms, and, rushing up the
     mountain, followed by a dozen of his foes, sprang to the edge
     of the dizzy height, and stood for a moment confronting his
     enemies. The sun was just setting; the valley was flooded
     with a golden light, and he stood there with the Antelope in
     his arms at bay for a moment, gazing in disdain upon his
     pursuers. As one of the Sioux was foremost in his attempt to
     seize the Crouching Panther, the latter hurled his hatchet
     with terrible, unerring force, and buried it deep into the
     presumptuous savage's brain. At the same moment crying out
     "The spirits of a hundred Pawnee braves will accompany their
     great chief to the happy hunting-grounds of their fathers,"
     he pressed close to his bosom the beautiful form of the
     Antelope, sprang out into the clear air, and bounding from
     rock to rock, the two lovers were dashed to pieces on the
     stony ground below. 

Chimney Rock, on the Platte, was once a famous landmark in the early days of the trail. When he reached it, the pioneer traveller knew that nearly one-half of the journey from the Missouri River and the Great Salt Lake was over. For miles on either side of it, it was plainly visible to the lonely trapper, the hunter, and the western-bound emigrant.

Erosion has worn it to an insignificant pillar, but it at one time was a portion of the main chain of bluffs bounding the valley of the Platte. Denudation through countless ages separated it from them. Fifty years ago it was a conical elevation, about a hundred feet high, from the apex of which another shaft arose forty feet. Its strange formation was caused by disintegration of the softer portions of its mass. It is located on the south side of the river, not far from the boundary line between Nebraska and Wyoming. It looked like a factory chimney, hence its name.

The origin of "Crazy Woman's Creek," according to a legend of the Crows, told by an aged chief to George P. Belden, is as follows:—

     Years ago, when my father was a little boy, there came among
     us a man who was half white. He said he wished to trade with
     our people for buffalo-robes, beaver, elk, and deerskins, and
     that he would give us much paint, and many blankets and pieces
     of cloth in exchange for furs. We liked him, and believed him
     very good, for he was rich, having many thousands of beads and
     hundreds of yards of ribbons. Our village was then built on
     the river, about twenty miles above where we now are, and game
     was very plentiful. This river did not at that time have the
     name of Crazy Woman, but was called Big Beard, because a
     curious grass grows along its banks that has a big beard.
     What I am about to relate caused the name of the river to be
     changed. 

     The trader built a lodge of wood and stones, and near it a
     great, strong house, in which he kept all his immense wealth.
     It was not long until he had bought all the robes and furs
     for sale in the village, and then he packed them on ponies,
     and bidding us good-by, said he was going far to the east
     where the paleface lives, but that he would soon come back,
     bring us many presents and plenty of blankets, beads, and
     ribbons, which he would exchange as before for robes and furs.
     We were sorry to see him go, but, as he promised to return
     in a few moons, we were much consoled. It was not long until
     our spies reported something they could not understand coming
     into our country, and the whole village was in a great state
     of alarm. Some of the boldest ventured out, and returned with
     the joyful intelligence that the strange objects our young men
     had seen was the trader and his people. All the village ran
     to meet him, and the sight was strange enough indeed.
     The Crows had in those days never seen a wagon, horse, or ox,
     and the trader had brought all these things. The wagons they
     called teepees on rollers; the horses were giants beside the
     little ponies, and the oxen, all believed were tame buffaloes.
     There, also, was a squaw, who was perfectly white, and who
     could not understand anything that was said to her. She wore
     dresses down to her feet, of which she seemed to be ashamed,
     and our women said she tied cords tightly about her waist,
     so as to make it small. She had very long hair, and did not
     plait but rolled it, and, instead of letting it hang down,
     wrapped it tightly about her head. 

     It was not long until the trader had all his wagons unloaded
     and his store open. He had brought all the women beads and
     ribbons, and the men brass rings. Besides what he sold, he
     made many presents; so everybody loved him, for no one had
     ever before seen so rich and generous a man. 

     One day he told the Big Chief to come into the back part of
     the store and he would show him something wonderful.
     The chief went, wondering what it could be, and when they
     were alone, the trader drew out a very little barrel and,
     taking a wooden cup, poured out some black-looking water,
     which he told the chief to drink. The chief did as desired
     and immediately felt so jolly he asked for more. The trader
     promised, if he would never tell any one where he got the
     black water, he would give him all he wanted. The chief
     promised, and the trader gave him another cupful. Now the
     chief danced and sang, and went to his lodge, where he fell
     down in a deep sleep, and no one could wake him. He slept
     so long the warriors gathered about the lodge wondering what
     could ail him, and they were about to go to the trader and
     demand to know what kind of medicine he had given the chief
     to make him behave so strangely when the chief woke up and
     ordered them all to their lodges, and to ask no questions. 

     Next day the chief went to the trader and said he had had
     great dreams; that he thought he had slain many of his
     enemies, and that the black medicine must be very good to
     make him have such pleasant visions. He begged the trader
     to give him some more, and he did so. Thus the chief did
     every day, and all the village wondered; for they believed
     the trader had bewitched him. In former times the chief had
     been a very quiet and dignified man, but now he sang, danced
     in the streets, and publicly hugged the women, so every one
     thought him crazy. The Crows disliked the conduct of their
     chief very much, and began to grumble against the trader;
     for they thought he was to blame for the great change that
     had come over their chief. Some said he was bewitched,
     others that the trader had an evil spirit in one of his boxes,
     and thus they talked, some believing one thing, and some
     another, but all blaming him. One of the young warriors
     called a secret council, and the matter was discussed, and
     it was finally decided that the trader must leave or they
     would put him to death. A warrior, who was a great friend
     of the trader, was sent to tell him of the decision of the
     council, and when he did so, the trader laughed and said if
     he would come into the back of the store, and never tell
     anybody, he would show him what ailed the chief. The warrior
     went, and the trader gave him a ladleful of the black water
     to drink. Presently he began to sing and dance about, and
     then went out into the street and sang, which greatly
     surprised every one, for he had never done so before.
     The young men gathered about him and asked him what ailed him,
     but he only said, "Oh, go to the trader and get some of the
     black water!" So they went to the trader and inquired what
     kind of black water he had that affected people so strangely;
     and the trader told them he had only the same kind of water
     they drank, and brought out his pail, that they all might
     drink. Each warrior took up the ladle and drank some, and
     made the trader drink some, and then they sat down to wait
     and see if it would affect them like the chief and their
     brother-warrior; but it did not, and they rose up and said,
     "The trader or our brother lies, and we will see who is the
     liar." They went to the warrior's lodge and found him sound
     asleep, nor could they wake him. Two remained to watch by
     him, and the others went to their teepees. When the sun
     was up, the warriors rose, and, seeing the others sitting
     in his tent, said, "Why are you here, my brothers?" And the
     eldest of the two warriors replied, "You have lied to us,
     for the trader has no black water." The warrior, recollecting
     his promise not to tell, said, "It is true that the trader has
     no black water, and who said he had?" They explained to him
     his conduct of the day before, at which he was greatly
     astonished, and he declared if such was the case he must have
     been very sick in his head and not known what he said.
     Thereupon the warriors withdrew and reported all to their
     brethren. The warriors were greatly perplexed, and knew not
     what to do or think, but decided to wait and see. 

     The chief and warrior were now drunk every day, and the young
     chief called another council. It was long and stormy in its
     debate, all the wise men speaking, but no one giving such
     counsel as the others would accept. At last a young warrior
     rose and said that he had watched, and that it was true that
     the trader had a black water which he gave the chief and
     warrior to drink; for he had made a hole in the wall of the
     trader's store and through it saw them drinking the black
     water. He advised them to bring the trader and warrior
     before them, and he would accuse them to their face of what
     he had seen, and if they denied the truth he would fight them. 

     This speech was received with great satisfaction, and the
     young chief at once sent some warriors to fetch the trader
     and their brother. 

     When they were come into the council and seated, the young
     warrior repeated all he had said, and asked if it were not
     true that they would fight him. 

     The warrior who was first asked rose up and said the young
     warrior lied, and that he was ready to fight him; but when
     the trader was told to stand up and answer, he, seeing there
     was no use in denying the matter, confessed all. He said the
     black water was given him by the white people, a great many
     of whom drank it, and it made them behave as they had seen
     the chief and the warrior do. He also told them that after
     a man drank of it he felt happy, laughed and sang, and when
     he lay down he dreamed pleasant dreams and slew his enemies. 

     The curiosity of the warriors was greatly excited and the
     young chief bade the trader go and bring some of his black
     water, that they might taste it. He was about to depart when
     the young warrior who had before spoken rose and desired him
     to be seated, when he said: "The warriors heard my speech,
     and it was good. The brother, however, when I asked him if
     he would tell the council the truth, said I lied, and he
     would fight me. Let us now go out of the village and fight." 

     The young chief asked the drunkard if he had anything to say,
     when he rose and addressed the council as follows:— 

     "Oh, my brethren, it is true that I have drunk of the black
     water, and that I have lied. When the trader first gave it
     to me to drink, he made me promise that I would never tell
     what it was, or where I got it, and he has many times since
     said if I told any one he would never give me any more to
     drink. Oh, my brethren, the black water is most wonderful,
     and I have come to love it better than my life, or the truth.
     The fear of never having any more of it to drink made me lie,
     and I have nothing more to say but that I am ready to fight." 

     Then the council adjourned, and every one went out to see
     the warriors fight. They were both men of great skill and
     bravery, and the whole village came to see the battle.
     He who drank the black water was the best spears-man in the
     tribe, and every one expected to see the other warrior killed. 

     The spears were brought, and when they were given to the
     combatants it was seen that the hand of him who had lied
     shook so he could hardly hold his spear. At this his friends
     rallied him, and asked him if he was afraid. He replied that
     his heart was brave, but that his hand trembled, though not
     with fear, for it had shook so for many days. 

     Then the battle began, and at the second throw of the spears
     he with the trembling hand was clove through the heart, and
     killed instantly, while the other warrior did not receive a
     wound. 

     After the fight was over, the warriors all went to the trader's
     lodge, and he brought in a pail more than a quart of the
     black water, which he gave in small quantities to each warrior.
     When they had swallowed it, they began to dance and sing, and
     many lay down on the ground and slept as though they were dead.
     Next day they came again and asked for more black water; and
     so they came each day, dancing and singing, for more than
     a week. 

     One morning the trader said he would give them no more black
     water unless they paid him for it, and this they did.
     The price was at first one robe for each sup sufficient to
     make them sleep, but, as the black water became scarce,
     two robes, and finally three were paid for a sleep. Then the
     trader said he had no more except a little for himself, and
     this he would not sell; but the warriors begged so hard for
     some he gave them a sleep for many robes. Even the body-robes
     were soon in the hands of the trader, and the warriors were
     very poor, but still they begged for more black water, giving
     a pony in exchange for each sleep. The trader took all the
     ponies, and then the warriors offered their squaws, but there
     was no more black water, and the trader said he would go and
     fetch some. 

     He packed all the robes on the ponies and was about to set out,
     when a warrior made a speech, saying that now that he had all
     their robes and ponies, and they were very poor, the trader
     was going away and would never return, for they had nothing
     more to give him. So the warriors said he should not depart,
     and ordered him to unpack the ponies. The trader told them
     he would soon return with plenty of black water, and give it
     to them as he did at first. Many of the warriors were willing
     that he should depart, but others said no, and one declared
     that he had plenty of black water still left and was going off
     to trade with their enemies, the Sioux. This created great
     excitement, and the trader's store and all his packs were
     searched, but no black water found. Still the warriors
     asserted that he had it, and that it was hidden away.
     The warriors declared that they would kill him unless he
     instantly told them where he had hid it, and upon his not
     being able to do so, they rushed into his lodge and murdered
     him before the eyes of his squaw, tearing off his scalp and
     stamping upon his body. This so alarmed the white squaw that
     she attempted to run out of the lodge, and, as she came to
     the door, a warrior struck her on the head with his tomahawk
     and she fell down as though she were dead. 

     The chief made a great speech, saying that now, as the trader
     was dead, they would burn his lodge and take back all their
     robes and ponies. So the lodge was fired, and as it burned
     a Crow squaw saw by its light the white squaw lying before
     the door, and that she was not dead, and she took her to her
     lodge, sewed up her wounds, and gave her something to eat.
     The squaw lived and got well, but she was crazy and could not
     bear the sight of a warrior, believing that every one who
     came near her was going to kill her. 

     One day the white squaw was missing, and the whole village
     turned out to look for her. They followed her tracks far
     down the river, but could not find her. Some women out
     gathering berries a few days afterward said the white squaw
     came to them and asked for food, showing them at the same
     time where she was hiding in the bluffs near by. She begged
     them not to tell the warriors where she was, or they would
     come and kill her. The squaws tried to dissuade her from
     a notion so foolish, but they could not get her to return
     to the village. 

     Every day the squaws went and took her food, and she lived
     for many months, no one knowing where she was but the women.
     When the warriors came about she hid away, and would not stir
     out until they were gone. One day, however, a warrior out
     hunting antelope came suddenly upon her and she fled away,
     but he followed her, wishing to bring her to the village.
     All day she ran over the hills, and at night the warrior came
     back, being unable to catch her. She was never seen again,
     and what became of her is not known, although it is likely
     she died of hunger, or that the wild beasts destroyed her. 

     Ever after, when the Indians came here to camp, they told
     the story of the crazy woman, and the place became known as
     the "place of the crazy woman," and the name of Big Beard
     was almost entirely forgotten. 

Laramie Plains present a broad bottom on both sides of the river, comprising about twelve hundred square miles, bounded on the north and east by the Black Hills, on the south by a "divide" of arenaceous rock, embedded in marl and white clay, almost barren of verdure, while on the west are the beautiful Medicine Bow Mountains. The southern portion of these plains is watered by a succession of streams which rise in the mountains, some of them discharging their volume into the Laramie River, others sinking in the sand—a characteristic of many creeks and so-called rivers of the central region of the continent.

The northern portion of these vast prairies is a high tableland, devoid of water, its soil mixed with clay and sand, but producing the grass peculiar to the other plains region. Toward the southeastern extremity, at the foot of an isolated mountain, is a salt lake of considerable dimensions, several other sheets of water are also to be seen in the vicinity of the Medicine Bow Mountains, all of which are strongly impregnated with mineral salts. The Laramie River traces its course through the whole extent, rising in the southern extremity of the Medicine Bow Mountains, and empties into the North Platte, at Fort Laramie.

Laramie Peak was the guiding hill that emigrants first saw of the far- famed western mountains—especially its snow-covered crest, a veritable beacon, its summit glistening in the morning sun as its rays fell upon it, the majestic hill ever pointing out the direction which the earnest pilgrims should travel.

The existence of a large lake of salt water somewhere amid the wilds west of the Rocky Mountains seems to have been vaguely known as long ago as two hundred years. As early as May, 1689, the Baron La Hontan,[40] lord- lieutenant of the French colony at Placentia, in New Foundland, wrote an account of discoveries in this region, which was published in the English language in 1735.

In the letter, which is dated at "Missilimakinac," he gives "an account of the author's departure from and return to Missilimakinac; a description of the Bay of Puants and its villages; an ample description of the beavers, followed by the journal of a remarkable voyage upon Long River, and a map of the adjacent country."

     Leaving Mackinaw, he passed into Green Bay, which he calls
     "the Bay of Pouteoutamois," and arrived at the mouth of Fox
     River, which he describes as "a little, deep sort of a river,
     which disembogues at a place where the water of the lake
     swells three feet high in twelve hours, and decreases as much
     in the same compass of time." 

     The villages of the Sakis, Pouteouatamis, and some Malominis
     are seated on the side of that river, and the Jesuits have
     a house, or college, built upon it. Ascending the Fox River,
     called "the river of Puants," he came to a village of Kikapous,
     which stands on the brink of a little lake, in which the
     savages fish great quantities of pikes and gudgeons.
     [Lake Winnebago?] 

     Still ascending the river, he passed through the "little lake
     of the Malominis," the sides of which "are covered with a sort
     of oats, which grow in tufts, with a small stalk, and of which
     the savages reap plentiful crops," and at length arrived at
     the land carriage of Ouisconsinc, which "we finished in two
     days; that is, we left the river Puants, and transported our
     canoes and baggage to the river Ouisconsinc, which is not
     above three-quarters of a league distant, or thereabouts."
     Descending the Wisconsin, in four days he reached its mouth,
     and landed on an island in the river Mississippi. 

     So far, the journey of the Baron La Hontan is plain enough;
     but beyond this point it is rather apocryphal. He states that
     he ascended the Mississippi for nine days, when he "entered
     the mouth of the Long River, which looks like a lake full of
     bulrushes." He sailed up this river for six weeks, passing
     through various nations of savages, of which a most fanciful
     description is given. At length, determined by the advance
     of the season, he abandoned the intention of reaching the
     head of the river, and returned to Canada, having at the
     termination of his voyage first "fixed a long pole, with the
     arms of France done upon a plate of lead." The following
     is his description of the "Long River": "You must know that
     the stream of the Long River is all along very slack and easy,
     abating for about three leagues between the fourteenth and
     fifteenth villages; for there, indeed, its current may be
     called rapid. The channel is so straight that it scarce winds
     at all from the head of the lake. 'Tis true 'tis not very
     pleasant, for most of its banks have a dismal prospect, and
     the water itself has an ugly taste; but then its usefulness
     atones for such inconveniences, for 'tis navigable with the
     greatest ease, and will bear barks of fifty tons, till you
     come to that place which is marked with a flower-de-luce in
     the map, and where I put up the post that my soldiers
     christened La Hontan's Limit." 

     A detailed map accompanies this imaginative voyage up this
     most imaginary river. It is represented as flowing east
     through twenty-five degrees of longitude, numerous streams
     putting into it on either side, with mountains, islands,
     villages, and domains of Indian tribes, whose very names have
     at this day sunk into oblivion. The map was afterward
     published, in 1710, by John Senex, F.R.S., as a part of North
     America, corrected from the observations communicated to the
     Royal Society at London and the Royal Academy at Paris. 

     This discovery of Baron La Hontan excited, even at that early
     day, the spirit of enterprise and speculation which has proved
     so marked a feature in the national character. In a work
     published in 1772, and entitled "A description of the Province
     of Carolina, by the Spaniards called Florida, and by the
     French La Louisiane, by Daniel Cox," the then proprietary,
     the first part of the fifth chapter is devoted to "A new and
     curious discovery and relation of an easy communication
     between the river Meschacebe (Mississippi) and the South Sea,
     which separates America from China, by means of several
     large rivers and lakes." 

The existence of the Great Salt Lake of Utah was known to the early Spanish voyageurs under the intrepid Coronado, through stories told them by the Indians, but there is no trustworthy account of any of them having seen it. To Jim Bridger, the famous mountaineer and scout, must be accorded the honour of having been the first white man to look upon its brackish waters. He discovered it in the winter of 1824-25, accidentally, in deciding a bet. The story of this visit to the Great Salt Lake comes down to us by the most reliable testimony. It appears that a party of trappers, under the command of William H. Ashley, one day found themselves on Bear River, in what is known as Willow Valley, and while lying in camp a discussion arose in relation to the probable course of the river. A wager was made, and Bridger sent out to determine the question. He paddled a long distance and came out on the Great Salt Lake, whose water he tasted and found it salt. Having made the discovery as to where the Bear River emptied, he retraced his lonely journey and reported the result to his companions.

Upon his report of the vast dimensions of the strange inland body of salt water, they all became anxious to learn whether other streams did not flow into the lake, and if so, there were new fields in which to try their luck in trapping beaver. To learn the fact four of them constructed boats of skins, and paddling into the lake, explored it.

Of course, it cannot be clearly proven that Old Jim Bridger was the first white man who saw the Great Salt Lake, but all others who have made claim to its discovery have not satisfied the demands of truth in their particulars, so the honour must and does rest upon Bridger; for no more authentic account of its discovery can be found. His statement is corroborated by such men as Robert Campbell, of St. Louis, and other famous mountaineers of the time.

There is a pretty piece of fiction connected with one of the claimants to its discovery, by the celebrated Jim Beckwourth, that famous Afro- American, who was chief of the Crow Nation. It says:

     One day in June, 1822, a beautiful Indian maiden offered him
     a pair of moccasins if he would procure for her an antelope
     skin, and bring the animal's brains with it, in order that
     she might dress a deerskin. Beckwourth started out in his
     mission, but failed to see any antelope. He did see an
     Indian coming toward him, whose brains he proposed to himself
     to take to the savage maiden after he had killed the buck,
     believing that she would never discover the difference, and
     had pulled up his rifle to fire when he happily saw that his
     supposed savage was William H. Ashley, of the American Fur
     Company, and who told him that he had sailed through Green
     River into the Great Salt Lake. 

It may be true that Ashley did sail upon the Great Salt Lake before Bridger; but the story lacks confirmation; it has not that reliable endorsement which Bridger's claim possesses.

Jedediah Smith, another of the famous coterie of old trappers, called the lake Utah, and the river which flows into it from the south after the celebrated Ashley.

Much has been given to the world in relation to the vicinity of the Great Salt Lake and the contiguous part of Utah by the famous author, Washington Irving, in his adventures of Captain Bonneville, but it should be taken cum grano salis; for, as Bancroft truthfully observes:

     Irving humoured the captain, whose vanity prompted him to give
     his own name to the lake, although he had not a shadow of
     title to that distinction. Yet on Bonneville's map of the
     region, the lake is plainly lettered "Bonneville's Lake." 

     Many old maps, dating from 1795 to 1826, have laid down upon
     them an inland sea, or lake, together with many other strange
     rivers and creeks, which never had any existence except in
     the minds of their progenitors, taken from the legendary tales
     of the old trappers, who in turn got them from the savages. 

     The early emigrants to Oregon and California did not travel
     within many miles of the Great Salt Lake, so but very scanty
     reports are to be found in relation to the country. General
     Fremont, too, like a great many explorers, got puffed up with
     his own importance, and when, on the 6th of September, 1846,
     he saw for the first time the Great Salt Lake, he compares
     himself to Balboa, when that famous Spaniard gazed upon the
     Pacific. Fremont, too, says that he was the first to sail
     upon its saline waters, but again, as in many of his statements,
     he commits an unpardonable error; for Bridger's truthful story
     of the old trappers who explored it in search of streams
     flowing into it, in the hopes of enlarging their field of
     beaver trapping, antedates Fremont's many years.[41] 

Captain Stansbury, of the United States army, made the first survey of the lake in 1849-50. Stansbury Island was named after him; Gunnison Island after Lieutenant Gunnison, of his command; Fremont's Island, after that explorer, who first saw it in 1843, and called it Disappointment Island.

Members of Captain Bonneville's company first looked upon the lake from near the mouth of the Ogden River, in 1833. His name has been given to a great fossil lake, whose shore line may now be seen throughout the neighbouring valleys, and of which the Great Salt Lake is but the bitter fragment.

The outlet to this vast ancient body of water has been shown by Professor Gilbert to have been at a place now called Red Rock Pass.