We chased them down the stream, and they finally turned to the left, went north, and crossed the South Platte river five miles above Ogallala.

We pushed rapidly after them, following them across the North Platte and on through the sand-hills towards the Niobrara; but as they were making much better time than we, the pursuit was abandoned.
While we were in the sand-hills, scouting the Niobrara country, the Pawnee Indians brought into camp, one night, some very large bones, one of which a surgeon of the expedition pronounced to be the thigh-bone of a human being.

The Indians claimed that the bones they had found were those of a person belonging to a race of people who a long time ago lived in this country.

That there was once a race of men on the earth whose size was about three times that of an ordinary man, and they were so swift and powerful that they could run along-side of a buffalo, and taking the animal in one arm could tear off a leg and eat the meat as they walked.
These giants denied the existence of a Great Spirit, and when they heard the thunder or saw the lightning they laughed at it and said that they were greater than either.

This so displeased the Great Spirit that he caused a great rain-storm to come, and the water kept rising higher and higher so that it drove those proud and conceited giants from the low grounds to the hills, and thence to the mountains, but at last even the mountain tops were submerged, and then those mammoth men were all drowned.