[346] Goose Egg Lake, so named by the explorers "from the circumstance of my [Clark] shooting a goose on her nest on some sticks in the top of a high cotton wood tree in which there was one egg," is now Cold Spring Lake (Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, i, pp. 304, 305). The great bend (Grand Detour) is still so named, but is much wider than the lower bend, being nearly ten miles across, and over twenty around the curve.—Ed.
[347] Coues, Lewis and Clark Expedition, i, p. 274, identifies Goat Pen Creek with Upper Knife River. Maximilian's identification of this stream as the present White Earth River appears to accord better with the Original Journals (i, p. 313). The White Earth rises in Coteau des Prairies, and flows directly south into the Missouri. Lewis and Clark applied the name to a river farther up, near the forks of the Yellowstone. See note 348, post, p. 372.—Ed.
[348] For the Assiniboin see our volume ii, p. 168, note 75. They separated from the Wazikute gens of the Yanktonnai Sioux before the middle of the seventeenth century. The Dakota stigmatize them as "Hohe" (rebels). Lewis and Clark name three bands of these people, of whom they heard along the Missouri—Gens de Canoe, Gens des Filles, and Gens des Grand Diables. The Gens des Filles (girl band) was composed of about sixty tents, its head chief being Les Yeux Gris (Grey Eyes). See United States Bureau of Ethnology Report, 1894-95, p. 223.—Ed.
[349] See p. [287], for illustration of bows, arrows, and quiver.—Ed.
[350] The White Earth River of Lewis and Clark, now Muddy River, is a northern affluent of the Missouri, taking its name from the mud by which its mouth is choked. Above the mouth it is a clear and partly navigable stream, flowing through a valley nearly five miles wide, fertile although treeless. It enters the Missouri in Buford County, having the town of Williston at its mouth.—Ed.
[351] Fort Union was the most important post of the American Fur Company on the upper Missouri. It was commenced in the autumn of 1828 (Maximilian says 1829), being at first known as Fort Floyd—another Fort Union existing higher up the river, which was abandoned, and the property transferred to the fort at the mouth of the Yellowstone. The actual site was five miles above the meeting of the rivers, on the north bank of the Missouri; see Larpenteur's Journal, i, pp. 50, 68. The fort was injured by fire in 1832, but substantially rebuilt, Wyeth (1833) pronouncing it superior to the Oregon forts of the British companies. Maintained until 1867, it was finally abandoned, part of its effects being transferred to the government post Fort Buford, some miles below.—Ed.
[352] Our knowledge of Hamilton is chiefly derived from the pages of Larpenteur, who says that the former was an English nobleman, whose real name was Archibald Palmer. Having become involved in some difficulties, he assumed the name James Archdale Hamilton, and having formed acquaintance with Kenneth McKenzie was sent by the latter as book-keeper to Fort Union, where he took full command during McKenzie's frequent absences. Hamilton was at this time about fifty years of age, punctilious in manner, particular in dress, and both respected and feared by his subordinates. Later he reverted to his own name and returned to St. Louis, becoming cashier for the American Fur Company, and dying in that city.—Ed.
[353] The French form for the name of this great river (Roche Jaune) was in early use; Chittenden (Yellowstone National Park (Cincinnati, 1895), pp. 1-7) thinks it a translation of the Indian term, derived from the predominant color of Yellowstone Cañon. The first use of the English form appears to be in the writings of David Thompson, the English explorer (1798). See Elliott Coues, New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest (New York, 1897), i, p. 302. The Crow Indians had a name for this stream, signifying "Elk."
The reference is to D. B. Warden, Statistical, Political, and Historical Account of the United States of North America (Edinburgh, 1819), i, p. 93.—Ed.
[354] For a view of this fort see Plate 61, in the accompanying atlas, our volume xxv.—Ed.