From the journals sent in by Ross to Hudson’s Bay House, it is hard to follow the exact itinerary of his movements for the next two months. Nor do the books, which he wrote of his life in the West, throw much light on the _locale_ of his travels. Wherever there were beaver and buffalo, the brigade marched. One week, the men were spread out in different parties on the Three Forks of the Missouri. Another week, they were on the headwaters of the Yellowstone in the National Park of Wyoming. They did not go eastward beyond sight of the mountains, but swung back and forward between Montana and Wyoming. “Saturday--April 17th--proceeded to the main fork of the Missouri and set watch. It was on this flat prairie, four hundred Piegans last year attacked Firman McDonald’s brigade and killed a freeman named Thomas Anderson. As we are on dangerous ground, I have drawn up the following rules: (1) All hands raise camp together by call; (2) The camp to march close together. (3) No person to run ahead; (4) No person to set traps till all hands are camped; (5) No person to sleep out of camp. All agreed to these rules, but they were broken before night. Thursday, 22nd of April--thirty-five beaver taken last night, six feet left in the traps, twenty-five traps missing (dragged off by the beaver or stolen by the Indians). The freemen let their horses run. They will not take care of them.” And then poor Ross varies the formalities of his daily report by breaking out in these lines against his unruly followers: “Loss and misfortune must be the lot When care and attention are wholly forgot.” “That scamp of a Saulteaux Indian threatens to leave because I found fault with him for breaking the rules. If he dares, I will strip him naked, horses, blankets and clothes, to fare forth on the plain. Saturday 24th--We crossed beyond the Boiling Fountains. The snow is knee-deep. Half the people are snow-blind from sun glare.” Ross now swung west over the Bitter Root Mountains to Salmon River, following as far as I can tell, the path of the modern Oregon Short Line Railway from Salt Lake to the Northern Pacific. So has it always been in America. Not the bridge builder but the fur trader has been the pathfinder for the railway. On leaving the middle fork of the Missouri, he refers to one of those wilderness tragedies of which word comes down to latter day life like a ghost echo of some primordial warfare. “Passed a deserted Piegan camp of thirty-six lodges rendered immemorial as the place where ten Piegan murderers of our people were burnt to death. The road through the mountains from the Missouri to Salmon River is a Blackfoot Pass of a most dangerous sort for lurking enemies; and yet the freemen insist on going out in twos and twos. Three people slept out of camp by their traps. I had to threaten not to give a single ball to them if they did not obey rules; fifty-five beaver to-day.”