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. Buffalo robes were piled upon the ground for the beds. The old horse that had done them such service in packing over the mountains was turned loose to find food and shelter in the primitive way.

There were two Canadians in the party, Valler and LeClerc, who were relied upon to do much of the hunting. And Robert McLellan, who was with Wayne in the Indian wars east of the Mississippi, was not of a temperament for the confinement of a camp. The river was frozen over, and the hunters went at will among the south hills, or hunted sheep on the mountain.

It is quite generally known these peculiar creatures of the wild used to frequent the most inaccessible cliffs of old Scotts Bluff, and they could be seen standing out in bold relief on the outermost pinnacles, surveying the bad lands and the valley with proprietary dignity. They would bound along the ledges that no hunter would dare to follow, or would leap over precipices when hard pressed striking upon their horns fifty or one hundred feet below, and recovering their feet, Would run away unharmed.