Many, many moons ago; many moons and many winters, the Pawnees came up the river from the ruins of Quivera.

The underground people of pre-historic Nebraska, and the corn raisers of hundreds of years ago, had left their "wallows." in the sands of the eastern part of the state, and had joined "the innumerable caravan that moves to the pale realm of shade," and the Pawnees, naturally nomadic, had for a time tarried, and were growing corn and "pompons" on the ruins of the past.

The introduction of "pompon" among the Indians dates back more than a century, for there are letters of Manuel Lisa, over a hundred years old, which tell of his way of winning and retaining the friendship of the Indians, and thereby turning into the markets so much rich fur.

I will digress sufficiently to tell a little of Lisa, as it was my privilege to examine some of these old letters recently. It was Lisa's boat which Roi and Dornin traded to Robert Stuart and party, at Great Island in the spring of 1813. This boat had a skeleton fn.me made of wood four feet wide, twenty feet long, and eighteen inches deep, and it took five elk hides to cover it.

As Lisa says : he put great activity into his operations, and went long distances alone into

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

the wilderness, and for long periods he was buried in the forest, or wandered about upon the plains. He introduced the "mammoth pompon," "the large bean." "the potato," and "the turnip." He loaned traps to the Indians, and tools, and made his habitations the refuge of those too old to follow the tribe.