Moran knew the country as well as any man and he had gone ever it in his mind, first eliminating all places which seemed unsuitable for sheltering the men they sought. Some were discarded for one reason and some for another. The full length of the Wapiti Divide was the first to go. Hunters scoured the Shoshone slope every fall and frequently came across and worked along the near side. If the camp had been there it would have been discovered by some one of these. One after another the stretches of gently rolling, easily accessible country were discarded. The open meadows along the river bottoms were crossed off the list of possibilities. The occasional parties of hunters which penetrated this deep into the hills usually followed these easier lines of travel.
Of the places which remained he chose the roughest spots as the most likely possibilities. Among these was the divide between the Thoroughfare and the Yellowstone. Bridger Lake nestled on the flat at the confluence of the two streams and behind it Hawk’s Rest, the point of the dividing range, swept up from its very banks, rising hundreds of feet in rugged cliffs.
All the first day was spent in exploring this one
