It was too dangerous to attempt the rescue of the body, so the surviving wife mortgaged the homestead for about four hundred dollars, made a contract with some experienced well diggers, who sank a new well some ten feet away from the old well, tunneled from the new to the old, rescued the body, brought it to the surface, and it was given decent interment.

Box Butte

The county derives its name from a large butte, located in the east central part of the county, which rudely resembles a box. The early French trappers named this Box Butte, pronounced "bute." butte being French for hill or elevation. The early cattle men called the country contiguous thereto the Box Butte country, to distinguish it from the White Clay country, and similarly named localities. It naturally followed that this should be selected as the name of the new county.

There is no record of any battle ever having been fought in the county between the Indians and United States troops, the nearest being when a band of Indians left their reservation in Colorado and started to return to the country from which they had been taken in the Dakotas. They were followed up by a company of soldiers under the command of Major Thornburg, who followed the trail to Bronco Lake near Alliance : and the trail seeming to scatter there, the command left their wagons, camp equipage, etc., while they scouted the sand hills to the south, believing the Indians were hidden in some of the canyons. Upon their return to camp, they found the Indians had visited it. carried off what provisions they could, and burned the remainder, together with the wagons, tents, and the rest of the outfit. This band was under the leadership of Chief Little Hog. They were later captured and imprisoned in a stockade at Ft.