looking up, discovered an old United States map hanging upon the wall. It at once attracted his attention, and he brought it to the light and began to study. It had the outlines of all the great West as far as geographers of that day knew and understood. The ranges of the mountains were nearly accurately pictured. "The great Stony," the Sierra and Coast ranges, the Shasta, and Wind River, and the possible passes were marked, so as to give some idea of the lay of the land.
The thought came to him, why not strike west and south and get between the great ranges so as to avoid the earlier snows of winter? He found marked upon the map Fort Uintah, an old abandoned Spanish fort, which came into possession of the United States in 1818, by the Florida treaty. He then began inquiry among the old mountaineers and found a man who knew the blind trail to Uintah, located in what is now northern Utah. He learned also there was an abandoned trail from that point southward. The old scout was ready to pilot them to Uintah, and was at once engaged. At break of day Whitman and Lovejoy were in their saddles en route, led by the guide, not homeward, but upon a voyage of discovery of the unknown way. The route led south through what is now Idaho, thence through Utah leaving Great Salt Lake to the right. General Lovejoy gives very
