The Surveyors

While Surveyor Nelson Buck worked near the Nebraska-Kansas border, two of his scouts, away on lookout, spotted four Sioux warriors. 

The scouts must have reasoned that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," for without delay, they killed three of the four. 

Their exasperation that the fourth "got away" would have deepened to terror if the scouts had known that the escaped Indian belonged to the renowned Pawnee Killer's tribe. 

When Chief Pawnee Killer heard about the unexpected slaughter, he rounded up 200 warriors and led them to attack the surveyors.

"I'm no more prepared to be killed by Indians than other men," Buck had said. But Pawnee Killer's men killed Buck anyway, plus every other man in his surveying party.

Coming April 28, 7-9 p.m.

The Apollon, 1801 Vinton St., Omaha

THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS:

The Unsettling History of the Dirty 

Deals that Helped Settle Nebraska

by Marilyn June Coffey