Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 53897-h.htm or 53897-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53897/53897-h/53897-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53897/53897-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/trailsofpathfind00grinrich Transcriber’s note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). TRAILS OF THE PATHFINDERS * * * * * * IN THE SAME SERIES PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS =The Boy’s Catlin.= My Life Among the Indians, by GEORGE CATLIN. Edited by MARY GAY HUMPHREYS. Illustrated. 12mo. _net_ $1.50 =The Boy’s Hakluyt.= English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery, retold from Hakluyt by EDWIN M. BACON. Illustrated. 12mo. _net_ $1.50 =The Boy’s Drake.= By EDWIN M. BACON. Illustrated. 12mo. _net_ $1.50 =Trails of the Pathfinders.= By GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL. Illustrated. 12mo. _net_ $1.50 * * * * * * TRAILS OF THE PATHFINDERS [Illustration: CAPTAINS LEWIS AND CLARK WERE MUCH PUZZLED AT THIS POINT TO KNOW WHICH OF THE RIVERS BEFORE THEM WAS THE MAIN MISSOURI.] TRAILS OF THE PATHFINDERS by GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL Author of “Blackfoot Lodge Tales,” “Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk Tales,” “The Story of the Indian,” “Indians of Today,” etc. Illustrated New York Charles Scribner’S Sons 1911 Copyright, 1911, by Charles Scribner’S Sons Published April, 1911 [Illustration] PREFACE The chapters in this book appeared first as part of a series of articles under the same title contributed to _Forest and Stream_ several years ago. At the time they aroused much interest and there was a demand that they should be put into book form. The books from which these accounts have been drawn are good reading for all Americans. They are at once history and adventure. They deal with a time when half the continent was unknown; when the West--distant and full of romance--held for the young, the brave and the hardy, possibilities that were limitless. The legend of the kingdom of El Dorado did not pass with the passing of the Spaniards. All through the eighteenth and a part of the nineteenth century it was recalled in another sense by the fur trader, and with the discovery of gold in California it was heard again by a great multitude--and almost with its old meaning.