In the years that have passed since then, the river has changed its course, and has cut into the lower end of Spring creek, leaving the location of the old camp upon what is know n as Big Island just at its lower extremity.

At this place some of the older dwellers of the valley -- Theo. D. Deutsch and others -- can recollect the very old cottonwood stumps, possibly the very trees cut by this party and made into canoes. And Mr. Deutsch is the owner of a hand forged ax, found on this is-

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

land which might have been once used by the Stuart party 100 years ago.

I wonder if the resolute Stuart ever had visions of the future -- if he ever dreamed that he and his party were blazing the trail for the mighty shifting of population that later crossed the continent. Children not then born, were the heads of families with Marcus Whitman, who piloted emigrants to Oregon in 1842-43 and 44. And there are great grandparents now living that were not born when Whitman made his journey.

This camp on Big Island was in the long ago. It was fifteen years before Hiram Scott

Robert Stuart's Winter Camp, 1812-13 Drawn from description and survey of Big Island.

perished on the bluff that bears his name, and was twenty years earlier than the time that Captain Bonneville visited the Scottsbluff county and made mention of the famous mountain.

The hut builded by these adventurers consisted of cottonwood posts, over which were fastened buffalo robes, making a wall that kept out the sweeping blasts that came down through Platte canyon, and roared over the bleak, bare prairies. In true wild fashion, the hole through which the smoke from the fires escaped was in the center of their winter home.