No longer shall the brave red men hunt buffalo over the hills or on the grassy plain. The white man comes to build houses and towns. The antelope will be gone, and the sunny hunting ground be plowed to raise food for the pale face and his children. He comes from the rising sun. The braves of the once great tribe are gone, and I am left: I go.' Then shouldering his rifle, the old warrior mounted his little

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

shaggy mustang, and was soon wending his way up the valley toward the northwest. As he rounded the last curve of the break through the hills the old chief turned and gazed behind him. Far below down the river his trained old eyes caught sight of a half dozen or more ox-wagons toiling slowly up the valley.

" 'The pale face/ the old warrior muttered, and turning his back once more, rode through the pass, around the turn, straight into the land of the setting sun.

"The next morning a wagon train consisting of some half dozen ox-wagons, rumbled laboriously along the Oregon Trail and wound its way up the North Platte valley. A halt was made near a singular, conicalshaped phenomenon, called by Washington Irving 'The Chimney.'

"Some of the party from the ox-wagons climbed Old Sig'nal Hill, and standing on its summit in the exact place where Old Spotted Elk had stood the evening before, gazed over the same picturesque panorama.

" 'Let us stop here,' said one. 'Here is grass for our cattle. Why go further and fare worse?'