[120] Upon leaving Fort Hall, the usual trail followed the valley of the Lewis (or Snake) to Fort Boise. Wyeth, however, struck directly northwest across the Snake River Desert, past the Three Buttes. Godin's Creek was what is now known as Lost River, from having no outlet.—Ed.
[121] These mountains—in Custer County, Idaho, between the different branches of Lost River—have apparently no local name that has been cartographically recorded; they lie between the Sawtooth and Lost River ranges.—Ed.
[122] The expedition apparently followed the east fork of Lost River, into a maze of mountains known locally as the "Devil's Bedstead."—Ed.
[123] We afterwards learned, that only three days before our arrival, a hard contested, and most sanguinary battle, had been fought on this spot, between the Bannecks and Blackfeet, in which the former gained a signal and most complete victory, killing upwards of forty of their adversaries, and taking about three dozen scalps. The Blackfeet, although much the larger party, were on foot, but the Bannecks, being all well mounted, had a very decided advantage; and the contest occurring on an open plain, where there was no chance of cover, the Blackfeet were run down with horses, and, without being able to load their guns, were trampled to death, or killed with salmon spears and axes.
This was not the first time that we narrowly escaped a contest with this savage and most dreaded tribe. If we had passed there but a few days earlier, there is every probability to suppose that we should have been attacked, as our party at that time consisted of but twenty-six men.—Townsend.
[124] According to Wyeth's account, the expedition retraced their steps to the forks of the river, then followed the south branch, passing over the mountains which form the boundary between Custer and Blaine counties, Idaho, and emerging on Trail Creek, the affluent of the Malade, which joins the main stream at Ketchum, the present terminus of the Wood River branch of the Oregon Short Line railway.—Ed.
[125] Malade (or Wood) River is a northern tributary of Lewis in Blaine County, Idaho. The mining town of Hailey is upon its banks. It was named Rivière des Malades (Sick Men's River) by Alexander Ross, who trapped upon it in 1824, and whose men fell ill from eating beaver that had fed upon a poisonous root. See Ross, Fur Hunters (London, 1855), ii, pp. 114-116.—Ed.
[126] After crossing the Malade, the expedition moved along one of its several western branches until reaching Camas Prairie, in Elmore County.
Camas (quamash) is a bulbous root much used for food by the Indians of the Columbia. Its Shoshoni name is passheco. For further description consult Thwaites, Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, iii, p. 78.—Ed.
[127] This root is probably the one usually spoken of by the French-Canadian trappers as "white-apple" (pomme blanche), or "swan-apple," and well known to scientists as Psoralea esculenta.—Ed.