[69] This was San Juan River, which heads in northwest New Mexico; entering southeastern Utah, it passes around the base of Mount Navaho, and unites with the Colorado in Kane County. It formed the northern boundary of the Navaho territory; see ante, [note 41.]—Ed.
[70] As they held possession of the mountains of Colorado, these were probably Paiutes. The numerous tribes of Ute are of Shoshonean stock; they extended along the Colorado River from California to its sources, and occupied nearly all of the present states of Utah and Nevada.—Ed.
[71] Pattie is not sufficiently definite for us to determine whether or not he crossed the divide by the now famous South Pass, which was already known to Rocky Mountain trappers. According to Coues (Henry-Thompson Journals, ii, p. 884), Stuart, Crooks, and four other Astorians discovered it on an overland journey from Astoria in 1812. The fur-trader Andrew Henry passed through it in 1823, but it was first made known to the world at large by John C. Frémont (1842), and is in consequence most often associated with his name.—Ed.
[72] For further information concerning Long's Peak, see James's Long's Expedition, volume xv of our series, p. 271, note 126.—Ed.
[73] The Bighorn is one of the three largest tributaries of the Yellowstone. It rises in the Shoshone and Wind River Mountains, in Wyoming, and following a northerly course enters the Yellowstone at about 46° 15′ north latitude. At its mouth, Manuel Lisa established the first trading post on the Yellowstone (1807). One of its branches has become famous as the scene of the Custer massacre.—Ed.
[74] For the Yellowstone River, see Bradbury's Travels, volume v of our series, p. 100, note 68.—Ed.
[75] A brief account of the Flathead Indians may be found in Franchère's Narrative, in our volume vi, p. 340, note 145. For the method of compressing the children's heads, consult illustration in Thwaites, Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, iv.—Ed.
[76] On the return journey of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Clark passed from the Bitterroot fork of Clark's branch of the Columbia, across the continental divide, through Gibbon's Pass, thence by way of Bozeman Pass and Jefferson and Gallatin rivers to the Yellowstone, reaching the latter near the present site of Livingston, Montana, about forty-five miles north of Yellowstone Park. See Thwaites, Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, v, p. 262.
There is at this point some strange mistake or hiatus in Pattie's journal. Clark's Fork of the Columbia takes its rise in the Bitterroot Mountains, and does not flow within a thousand miles of Long's Peak; nor would the time allowed—less than three weeks—have admitted of so extensive a journey. The trappers must have become confused among the northern rivers, and returned on their steps up the North Fork of the Platte.—Ed.
[77] For the Blackfeet Indians, see Bradbury's Travels, volume v of our series, p. 225, note 120.—Ed.