The chief made a great speech, saying that now, as the trader was dead, they would burn his lodge and take back all their robes and ponies.  So the lodge was fired, and as it burned a Crow squaw saw by its light the white squaw lying before the door, and that she was not dead, and she took her to her lodge, sewed up her wounds, and gave her something to eat.  The squaw lived and got well, but she was crazy and could not bear the sight of a warrior, believing that every one who came near her was going to kill her.

One day the white squaw was missing, and the whole village turned out to look for her.  They followed her tracks far down the river, but could not find her.  Some women out gathering berries a few days afterward said the white squaw came to them and asked for food, showing them at the same time where she was hiding in the bluffs near by.  She begged them not to tell the warriors where she was, or they would come and kill her.  The squaws tried to dissuade her from a notion so foolish, but they could not get her to return to the village.

Every day the squaws went and took her food, and she lived for many months, no one knowing where she was but the women.  When the warriors came about she hid away, and would not stir out until they were gone.  One day, however, a warrior out hunting antelope came suddenly upon her and she fled away, but he followed her, wishing to bring her to the village.  All day she ran over the hills, and at night the warrior came back, being unable to catch her.  She was never seen again, and what became of her is not known, although it is likely she died of hunger, or that the wild beasts destroyed her.

Ever after, when the Indians came here to camp, they told the story of the crazy woman, and the place became known as the “place of the crazy woman,” and the name of Big Beard was almost entirely forgotten.

Laramie Plains present a broad bottom on both sides of the river, comprising about twelve hundred square miles, bounded on the north and east by the Black Hills, on the south by a “divide” of arenaceous rock, embedded in marl and white clay, almost barren of verdure, while on the west are the beautiful Medicine Bow Mountains.  The southern portion of these plains is watered by a succession of streams which rise in the mountains, some of them discharging their volume into the Laramie River, others sinking in the sand—­a characteristic of many creeks and so-called rivers of the central region of the continent.

The northern portion of these vast prairies is a high tableland, devoid of water, its soil mixed with clay and sand, but producing the grass peculiar to the other plains region.  Toward the southeastern extremity, at the foot of an isolated mountain, is a salt lake of considerable dimensions, several other sheets of water are also to be seen in the vicinity of the Medicine Bow Mountains, all of which are strongly impregnated with mineral salts.  The Laramie River traces its course through the whole extent, rising in the southern extremity of the Medicine Bow Mountains, and empties into the North Platte, at Fort Laramie.