The sun was just setting; the valley was flooded with a golden light, and he stood there with the Antelope in his arms at bay for a moment, gazing in disdain upon his pursuers.  As one of the Sioux was foremost in his attempt to seize the Crouching Panther, the latter hurled his hatchet with terrible, unerring force, and buried it deep into the presumptuous savage’s brain.  At the same moment crying out “The spirits of a hundred Pawnee braves will accompany their great chief to the happy hunting-grounds of their fathers,” he pressed close to his bosom the beautiful form of the Antelope, sprang out into the clear air, and bounding from rock to rock, the two lovers were dashed to pieces on the stony ground below.

Chimney Rock, on the Platte, was once a famous landmark in the early days of the trail.  When he reached it, the pioneer traveller knew that nearly one-half of the journey from the Missouri River and the Great Salt Lake was over.  For miles on either side of it, it was plainly visible to the lonely trapper, the hunter, and the western-bound emigrant.

Erosion has worn it to an insignificant pillar, but it at one time was a portion of the main chain of bluffs bounding the valley of the Platte.  Denudation through countless ages separated it from them.  Fifty years ago it was a conical elevation, about a hundred feet high, from the apex of which another shaft arose forty feet.  Its strange formation was caused by disintegration of the softer portions of its mass.  It is located on the south side of the river, not far from the boundary line between Nebraska and Wyoming.  It looked like a factory chimney, hence its name.

The origin of “Crazy Woman’s Creek,” according to a legend of the Crows, told by an aged chief to George P. Belden, is as follows:—­

Years ago, when my father was a little boy, there came among us a man who was half white.  He said he wished to trade with our people for buffalo-robes, beaver, elk, and deerskins, and that he would give us much paint, and many blankets and pieces of cloth in exchange for furs.  We liked him, and believed him very good, for he was rich, having many thousands of beads and hundreds of yards of ribbons.  Our village was then built on the river, about twenty miles above where we now are, and game was very plentiful.  This river did not at that time have the name of Crazy Woman, but was called Big Beard, because a curious grass grows along its banks that has a big beard.  What I am about to relate caused the name of the river to be changed.

The trader built a lodge of wood and stones, and near it a great, strong house, in which he kept all his immense wealth.  It was not long until he had bought all the robes and furs for sale in the village, and then he packed them on ponies, and bidding us good-by, said he was going far to the east where the paleface lives, but that he would soon come back, bring us many presents and plenty of blankets,