In a few days we set out for the Republican, where, we had learned, there were plenty of Indians.
At Frenchman's Fork we discovered a village, but did not surprise it, for the Indians had seen us approaching and were in retreat as we reached their camping-place.
We chased them down-stream and through the sandhills, but they made better time than we did, and the pursuit was abandoned.
While we were in the sandhills, scouting the Niobrara country, the Pawnee Indians brought into camp some very large bones, one of which the surgeon of the expedition pronounced to be the thigh bone of a human being.

The Indians said the bones were those of a race of people who long ago had lived in that country.

They said these people were three times the size of a man of the present day, that they were so swift and strong that they could run by the side of a buffalo, and, taking the animal in one arm, could tear off a leg and eat it as they ran.
These giants, said the Indians, denied the existence of a Great Spirit.
When they heard the thunder or saw the lightning, they laughed and declared that they were greater than either.

This so displeased the Great Spirit that he caused a deluge.

The water rose higher and higher till it drove these proud giants from the low grounds to the hills and thence to the mountains.