"One day the others went after buffalo and left Brady and the man that hated him alone on the island. When the hunters come home at night Brady was dead by the camp fire, shot through the head and lyin' stiff in his blood. The other one had a slick story to tell how Brady cleanin' his gun, discharged it by accident and the bullet struck up and killed him. They didn't believe it, but it weren't their business. So they buried Brady there on the island and the next day each man shouldered his pack and struck out to foot it to the Missouri. "It was somethin' of a walk and the ones that couldn't keep up the stride fell behind. They was all strung out along the river bank and some of 'em turned off for ways they thought was shorter, and first thing you know the party was scattered, and the man that hated Brady was left alone, lopin' along on a side trail that slanted across the prairie to the country of the Loup Fork Pawnees. "That was the last they saw of him and it was a long time--news traveled slow on the plains in them days--before anybody heard of him for he never come to St. Louis to tell. Some weeks later a party of trappers passin' near the Pawnee villages on the Loup Fork was hailed by some Indians and told they had a paleface sick in the chief's tent. The trappers went there and in the tent found a white man, clear headed, but dyin' fast. "It was the man that killed Brady. Lyin' there on the buffalo skin, he told them all about it--how he done it and the lie he fixed up. Death was comin', and the way he'd hated so he couldn't keep his hand from murder was all one now. He wanted to get it off his mind and sorter square himself. When he'd struck out alone he went on for a spell, killin' enough game and always hopin' for the sight of the river. Then one day he caught his gun in a willow tree and it went off, sending the charge into his thigh and breaking the bone. He was stunned for a while and then tried to move on, tried to crawl. He crawled for six days and at the end of the sixth found a place with water and knowed he'd come to the end of his rope. He tore a strip off his blanket and tied it to the barrel of his rifle and stuck it end up. The Pawnees found him there and treated him kind, as them Indians will do sometimes. They took him to their village and cared for him, but it was too late. He wanted to see a white man and tell and then die peaceful, and that's what he done. While the trappers was with him he died and they buried him there decent outside the village."