When the first lands were sold by the Cherokee, in 1721, a part of the tribe bitterly opposed the sale, saying that if the Indians once consented to give up any of their territory the whites would never be satisfied, but would soon want a little more, and a little again, until at last there would be none left for the Indians. Finding all they could say not enough to prevent the treaty, they determined to leave their old homes forever and go far into the West, beyond the Great River, where the white man could never follow them.

No more was heard of the wanderers, and in time the story of the lost Cherokee was forgotten or remembered only as an old tale.

Still the white man pressed upon the Cherokee and one piece of land after another was sold, until as years went by the dispossessed people began to turn their faces toward the west as their final resting place, and small bands of hunters crossed the Mississippi to learn what might be beyond. One of these parties pushed on across the plains and there at the foot of the great mountains -- the Rockies -- they found a tribe speaking the old Cherokee language and living still as the Cherokee had lived before they had ever known the white man or his ways.