A Story of Court House Rock 
By DR. ALBERT 
T HE old Salt Lake trail—a now almost for¬ 
gotten road—follows on and on through the 
magnificent reaches and distances traversed 
by the wide, shallow Platte River. The stream 
stretches away between low alluvial banks until 
seemingly lost in the distance, the silvery sheen 
of the water blending with the horizon, so that 
often one cannot tell which is water and which 
is sky. The broad tranquil surface of the fluvial 
reaches is dotted with many a low-lying pic¬ 
turesque, grassy island such as sportsmen 01 
wild geese might love to haunt. These photo¬ 
graphs were taken by H. P. Blair, of the Geo¬ 
logical Survey. While en route, in the saddle, 
from the Shoshone Needles and Bighorn Moun¬ 
tains of Wyoming to my home in Illinois, in 
May, 1896, I rode into Camp Clark, in Western 
Nebraska. 
I next followed the old trail across country 
to Court House Rock on Pumpkin Creek. This 
pile of shaly rock, which bears a striking re¬ 
semblance to a court house with a jail standing 
near it,-is the scene of a Pawnee hero story of 
the long ago which George Bird Grinnell has 
preserved to us in his fascinating book, “Pawnee 
Hero Stories and Folk Tales,” in which, by the 
way, is the only satisfying account of “Pani 
Leshar” (Major Frank North) and his Pawnee 
scouts that I have ever read. The Indian hero 
tale appears under the caption of “The Prisoners 
of Court House Rock.” 
“Court House Rock is a high, square-shaped 
bluff or butte on the North Platte River. It is 
composed of a hard, yellowish clay which is but 
slowly eroded by the weather, though soft enough 
to be readily cut with a knife. On all sides ex¬ 
cept one this rock or butte is nearly or quite 
vertical, and its sides, smoothed and polished by 
the wind and the rain, offer no projecting points 
to serve as foot or hand holds for one who 
might wish to climb up or down. On one side 
there is a way by which an active man may 
reach the summit where he finds a flat tableland 
of moderate extent. 
“A number of years ago a war party of Skidi, 
who were camped near Court House Rock, were 
surprised by a party of Sioux. There were 
many of them and they drove the Skidi back, 
and at length these were obliged to climb the 
steep side of the rock. The Sioux dared not 
follow them up on to the rock, but guarded the 
only place where it was possible to come down 
and camped all around the rock below to starve 
the Skidi out. The Skidi had nothing to eat 
nor drink and suffered terribly from hunger and 
J. WOODCOCK 
still more from thirst. The leader of the party 
suffered most of any, for he thought that he 
would surely lose all his men. He felt that this 
was the worst of all. He must not only die, 
but must also be disgraced, because under his 
leadership the young men of his party had been 
lost. He used to go off at night, apart from the 
others, and pray to Ti-ra-wa for help; for some 
way to save his party. 
“One night while he was praying, something- 
spoke to him and said: ‘Look hard for a place 
where you may get down from this rock and so 
save both your men and yourself.’ He kept on 
praying that night, and when day came he looked 
all along the edge of the rock for a place where 
it might be possible to get down. At last he 
found near the edge of the cliff a point of the 
soft clay rock sticking up above the level of the 
rest. The side of the rock below it was straight 
up and down and smooth. At night he took his 
knife and began to cut about the base of this 
point of rock, and night after night he kept at 
this until he had cut away the base of the point 
so that it was no larger around than a man's 
body. Then he secretly took all the lariats the 
party had, tied them together and let them down 
and found that his rope was long enough to 
reach the ground. Fie put the rope around the 
point and made a loop in it for his feet and 
slowly let himself down to the ground. He got 
there safely and then climbed back again. The 
next night he called his men about him and told 
them how they all might be saved. 1 hen he 
ordered the youngest and least important man 
of the party to let himself down, and after him 
the next youngest, and so on, up to the more 
important men, and last of all the leader. He 
let himself down and they all crept through the 
Sioux camp and escaped. 
“They never knew how long the Sioux stayed 
there watching the rock; probably until they 
thought that the Skidi had all starved to death.” 
In the foreground of the long distance view 
of the rock, between the creek and rock named 
Pumpkin, was the camp of the Sioux extending 
from which a line of outliers in open formation 
held the Skidi prisoners on Jail Rock, an extra 
lynx-eyed guard being stationed between the 
rocky eyries which the men of a later day and 
a different race were pleased to call the Court 
House and the Jail respectively. The escape 
was consummated from the further beetling cliff 
of the Jail Rock, whence the Pawnee warriors 
passed directly down through the Sioux camp 
and on across the North Platte River, thence 
to their home on the Wolf (Loup) Fork of the 
Nebraska River in the heart of the land of the 
shallow waters—so the circumstance of the trail 
and land would seem to suggest. 1 he rugged 
beauty of this historic landmark ever grows 
upon the beholder. Oh, the aching eyes and 
sorely troubled hearts, both red and white, that 
have passed the rock and .traversed the sur¬ 
rounding plain. It stands to-day a striking land¬ 
mark and monument of the ever-changing West, 
the* illimitable plains and the wild life now gone 
from the land forever. Tradition of any colored 
people of any country is an elusive thing at best, 
now here, now there and ever turning up in un¬ 
expected places. So it is possible that in the 
long ago this hero tale of the Skidi, related to 
white ears about a buffalo chip camp-fire in the 
sandhills or redlands country of Western Ne¬ 
braska, may have crystallized into the white 
man’s Court Plouse and Jail Rock of the old 
emigrant trail. 
From these historic landmarks and badland 
walls of indurated clay overlooking the valley 
of Pumpkin Creek—the butte of the same name 
is fifteen saddle sleeps to the north and west of 
Court House Rock almost at the foot of the 
Bighorn Mountains, and on the Dry Fork of the 
Powder River in the country of the higher plains 
-—I rode south to Charley Nelson’s horse ranch 
on Greenwood Creek, fifteen miles from Camp 
Clark. Fifteen miles is nothing for a day’s ride 
on the plains, but nolens volens, I had to pass 
the rest of the day and night with him and his 
estimable wife. 
Charley Nelson was a typical, all-round, old- 
time Western man. Physically he was a giant 
and as active as a cat. In his home, genial 
whole-souled hospitality reigns supreme. This 
old Merchant and Wheeler ranch was one of 
the very best in the olden time. The original 
cabin is attached on the north side of the pres¬ 
ent structure. The old port holes for rifle fire 
are still visible. On the north side of the old 
cabin is a little window-like opening which com¬ 
municated with the stable, thus enabling the men 
to crawl through and feed the horses in the 
morning without the danger of getting an arrow 
in the back. From Greenwood to Ash Hollow 
on the north fork of the river was the favorite 
hold-up ground of the Ogallala Sioux, than whom 
no more ruthless and persistent wild, savage 
horse-fighting men ever took toll of pilgrims on 
the old Salt Lake trail. Mr. Nelson said: 
“A woman by the name of Smith kept one 
of the stage stations on the old trail a mile and 
a half south of this ranch. One evening in the 
good old days when the six-shooter settled all 
of a man’s little differences, there was a dance 
at that place. Harmony did not prevail among 
the guests and two of the boys died with their 
boots on. In the morning when the stage came 
in, the driver had three pilgrims (tenderfeet) 
