Goshe was found dead in his cabin, and Gonneville was killed on the creek that bore his name for so many years, and even that friend of the Indian, the gentle Jacques Laramie, was not immune from the vicious Arapahoes.

In 1820, he announced that he would trap on Laramie fork the coming season, and when the other trappers pointed out the dangers, he said he would go alone. He did -- and he died alone, at the base of the great mountain that bears his name. His body was found in his cabin in 1821 by a party of trappers who had gone in search of him.

He had failed to meet at the rendezvous as agreed, but he had gone the way of brave John Day, and of Hoback, Robinson, Rezner and McLellan. into a stranger land -- to a Final Rendezvous in the Wilderness of Stars.

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

GENERAL WILLIAM H. ASHLEY'S TRAPPERS -- DEATH OF HIRAM SCOTT

In 1823, General Ashley started with a powerful party up the Missouri, but at the Ankara villages they met with such hostilities that a number of men were killed and others utterly discouraged. Following the talk of mutiny, he released all, and called for volunteers. Forty men, most of them hardy mountaineers from Kentucky, responded ; the others returning to St. Louis. Among the forty was Hiram Scott, a man of considerable education and romance.

With these men General Ashley returned to the Platte and ascended the river to the mountains. At the forks, he sent a small detachment up the south river with instructions to meet the main party on the Seeds-keedee, or prairie-hen river, which had been called the Spanish river for some time, and soon after it was changed to Green river. With about thirty men he crossed the south fork of the Platte at the point where the city of North Platte now lies, and the north fork at or near the mouth of the Birdwood.