Some two hundred miles to the northwest of Scottsbluff is an extinct crater of a volcano, and the basin has filled with the clear sweet water of the Big Horn mountains. The lake, fed by everlasting springs, is named Lake De Smet. ~

There were many other heroic bearers of the Cross in the wilderness, but forever will the names of Jason and Daniel Lee. Marcus Whitman, Samuel Parker and Peter De Smet be heard, for the dangers which they braved and the foundations they laid for Christian religion in the mighty wilderness of the west.

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

About the first of June, 1833, two braves of the Nez Perce tribe, carried their burdens with meloncholy tread along the valley of the "Flat Water," then beautiful in the verdure of early summer. They reached the top of a slight eminence beyond the thicket of mountain ash. later described as "Ash Hollow." and they heard the whistling of song birds, and paused. The grove gave forth a multitude of sounds. In the thrilling silence of the atmosphere, they heard the call of nature to their souls. Their sagging spirits were being renovated by the Great Spirit of the universe. In the shimmering mirage of the west they saw the silhouettes of mountains -- the wigwam, and far away the dim trembling outline of Scottsbluff.

And glad to see the beginning of their native element -- the mountains -- they sent reverberating up to the silent sky, the shrill and plaintive cry of the coast tribe Indians. They broke into a run -- down into and out past the shadows of the grove, and on, until their bronzed figures danced and shivered and shimmered in the glare of the setting sun.