The Great Salt Lake Trail

by Henry Inman; Buffalo Bill

After passing Grand Island, the next place of importance between the flourishing town of Columbus and North Platte is that known as Brady's.

Brady's Island honours the memory of an old-time trapper, who was brutally murdered by one of his partners in 1847. They were engaged in their vocation as employees of the American Fur Company, on the many tributaries of the Platte, and their camp at the time was on the island that bears the unfortunate man's name. The tradition says that the little coterie of trappers had landed there to pack their accumulation of the season's furs for the market of St. Louis, then the only place where they could be disposed of in the whole West.

The day when everything was about ready for embarkation down the river to the Missouri, in a rude boat which they had constructed of buffalo-hides drawn over a framework of poles, Brady and one of the men were in the camp alone—the others were at work on the bank of the stream. Brady and the one who was left in the camp that morning were ever on bad terms with each other, and more than once had indulged in some severe quarrels.

When the rest of their party returned to the camp preparatory to starting, they found Brady dead, lying in a pool of his own blood. His partner, when questioned as to the cause of his death, affirmed that he was accidentally killed by the premature discharge of his own rifle, which he had been carelessly handling.

The story was not believed by the men, and the cold-blooded murderer escaped lynching by his companions only by the better judgment of the cooler heads of some, who insisted that possibly the tale might be true. The body of the unlucky trapper was buried near the spot where he fell, but was soon dug up by the wolves, and his bones left to bleach in the wintry sun. Portions of them were found eight or ten years afterward by another party of trappers, and when they recognized them as those of a human being, they carefully reinterred them.

The party of trappers, sad at the loss of one of their number, started down the Platte, with their boat-load of furs, but finding the river too shallow to navigate their frail craft, they were compelled to abandon it. They themselves carried what they could of its contents and made the best of their way on foot, two hundred and fifty miles, to the nearest settlement. In a few days their provisions began to run short, and as game became scarce, they separated, after making about one hundred miles of their lonesome journey, each man taking his own trail toward the Missouri. The murderer of Brady happened to be a very indifferent walker, and was soon left many miles behind his comrades.

When the foremost of the party arrived at the Pawnee village, on the Loup Fork of the Platte, they sent back two members of that tribe to bring in the lost man, while they continued on their journey toward the Missouri. A week or more later a small party of trappers belonging to the same fur company, happening to go near the Indian village, were stopped by the head chief, who requested them to go with him, to see a white man who was lying very sick in his teepee.

They complied with the Indian's request, and found the murderer of Brady at the point of death. He confessed to them how Brady came to his end; told of his own sufferings, and believed them to be the justice that was dealt out to him for the unwarranted killing of his partner. He told them, further, that when his companions left him on the road, he had tried to light a fire at night with his pistol, and the charge accidentally entered his thigh bone, tearing it into splinters. In that deplorable condition he was absolutely helpless; to walk was an impossibility. He could hardly move at all, far less dress his wound properly. He managed, by tying a piece of cloth to a stick, to let any passing trapper know where he was lying. He remained there for six days and nights, when at last his ear caught the sound of human voices, and waking up from the stupor which had overcome him from his weakness, to his great delight he discovered two friendly Pawnees leaning over him, their countenances filled with compassion. They gave him some nourishment, tenderly conveyed him to their village, and had kindly cared for him ever since.

He expired while the trappers were conversing with him.

One of the historic places on the left bank of the North Fork of the Platte is Ash Hollow,[39] twelve miles distant from the main stream, famous for a battle between Little Thunder, chief of the Brule Sioux, and the Second Regiment of United States Dragoons, under command of Brevet Brigadier William S. Harney; in which some eighty Indians were slain, and the lives of twelve of our own soldiers lost.