Charles Fordyce, one of the pony express riders, was killed by Indians a little north of that station.

In 1877, a white man who had been selling or trying to sell trees in the Hills drove into the Newman station. It was snowing and the Newman outfit tried to persuade him to stay until the storm was over but he pressed on. Later appeared an advertisement asking

Pony Express and Overland Mail Of Fort Kearney

the whereabouts of a tree man, saying last seen on Cheyenne river traveling south. The following spring Hunter & Evans outfit found him. Fie had perished in the snow.

The Kearney route was given up about January, 1878, and the route through Sidney became the main traveled one to the gold fields.

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

Idians Attack Surveyors

Indians were hostile to all white advances, especially to surveyors and when I. W. La- Munyon was surveying on Pumpkin creek in 1872, a detachment of soldiers were sent to guard the surveying party. There had been no sign of Indians and one day the soldiers rode out a considerable distance from the surveyors at work and the camp. The Indians then seemed to rise out of the prairie and the surveyors "dug in" making a hole about eight feet square into which they put the provisions and water, then crawled in themselves. The Indians circled about on ponies, swinging over their sides and shooting under the animals necks; but the soldiers heard the firing, returned in haste, and the Indians fled. No one was hurt although a number of Indian ponies were shot by the surveyors.