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It's surprising how easy it is to become lost.

Running down every aisle of a department store looking for the person you entered with

down a distant tangle of backroads pleading with a non-functioning GPS

even a suburban backyard can turn sinister the instant you realize you've lost your bearings

but have you ever been truly hopeless hopelessly, frighteningly lost?

In 1870, before Montana and Wyoming were states, and America held no federally protected lands,

some 20 explorers set out into the maze of uncharted wilderness known as Yellowstone.

Among the Washburn-Langford-Done expedition was 54-year-old Truman C. Everts,

the Montana Territory's first federal tax assessor,

who had recently found himself out of a job.

The party departed Helena the 16th of August on horseback, tracing the continental divides

south via the Yellowstone River.

The morning of September 9th, everyone was accounted for.

That night at camp, they realized Truman was missing.

Immediately a search was organized.

Steps were retraced.

Two weeks were spent scouring the nearby headwaters of the snake in Yellowstone rivers.

But there was no sign of their comrade.

Later, they recovered his riderless packhorse.

But this story has a happy ending.

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