As a rule the Indians of the Great Northwest seemed to avoid the region now known as Yellowstone Park, even though it abounded in game, because of superstitious fears connected with the mysterious working of the spouting geysers, which they believed to be the evidence of the Evil One opposed to the Good Manitou. Occasionally the Blackfeet or the Crows invaded the borders when in need of fresh meat. Some lodges of a fragment of the Snake Indians have been found, a miserable tribe known as Sheep-eaters; but the powerful Sioux, the Mandans, and the Nez Perces tribes avoided the district as though it were truly accursed. The most important Indian trail in the Park was that known as the Great Bannock Trail. It extended from Henry Lake across the Gallatin Range to Mammoth Hot Springs, where it was joined by another coming up the valley of the Gardiner. Thence it led across the Black-tail Deer plateau to the ford above Tower Falls; thence up the Lamor Valley, forking at Soda Butte, and reaching the Bighorn Valley by way of Clark's Falls and the Stinking-water River. The trail was certainly a very ancient and much traveled one. It had become a deep furrow in the grassy slopes, and is still distinctly visible in places, though unused for a quarter of a century. Arrows and spear heads have been discovered in considerable numbers. Some of the early explorers also found more recent and perishable evidence of the presence of Indians in the Park in the shape of rude wick-e-ups, brush enclosures, and similar contrivances of the Sheep-killers. NOTE 7 (PAGE 196) Of all the tribes west of the Mississippi, even including the warlike Sioux, none gave the venturesome paleface adventurers who wandered into that country more trouble than the Blackfoot Indians. Like the Flatheads, and some other tribes, they had their main villages far up amidst the pine-clad mountains where enemies could hardly reach them without long and dangerous journeys. From these eyries they were accustomed to sally forth, either on some grand hunt for a winter's supply of meat, or else to strike a sudden blow at some tribe with which they were at war. When game grew scarce in their customary hunting grounds, some of these bold braves were in the habit of taking longer hunts, and had frequently approached the border of the Land of Wonders. As a rule they avoided the country of the spouting geysers, because they believed an Evil Spirit dwelt there. The habits of these Indians differed from those of the Mandans, because they were by nature of a much wilder disposition, utterly untamable. To this day the remnants of the old Blackfoot tribe are not to be compared with other civilized aborigines who have taken to the plow and the cottage. The Mandans themselves suffered so severely from smallpox, introduced into the tribe through connection with the whites, that long years ago they became extinct. NOTE 8 (PAGE 221)