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They had traveled farther than any European had gone before, brought their crews home safely, and provided the first full picture of the lands and people of the upper Missouri. They had built trading posts and forts as instructed. They had even managed to expel a handful of British merchants. And though they failed to find a water route to the far ocean, the Spanish nonetheless embraced the explorers as heroes. Mackay received a military commission, an annual stipend, and a large land grant. He later married well, built a substantial house for his family and even won elective office in the now American-controlled St. Louis.

Evans' story ended less happily. Months among the Mandan convinced him the tribe was not, in fact, descended from Prince Madog -- a crushing realization. Meanwhile, back in St. Louis, Evans' own land grant somehow never materialized. Nor did any official appointment. With Mackay's help, Evans did eventually find work in New Orleans, and for a time the young Welshman lived with a sympathetic Spanish administrator. But ill health and disillusionment took its toll.

Wood quotes a friend of Evans recalling the explorer as "being for some time deprived of his reason" from "Chagrin and disappointment in his Views." It was downhill from there.

The end came during a malaria outbreak in 1799, just two years after his return from the Mandan. Because he died during an epidemic, Wood says, Evans was likely buried in a mass grave. He was 29 years old.

The memory of Evans' accomplishments quickly faded as, over time, did Mackay's. Today not a single monument exists to commemorate the explorers' contribution to our nation's history. Wood believes that's a shame.

"James Mackay and John Thomas Evans had marched with 'long strides upon unknown soil' and paved the way for the first half of the transcontinental journey of the Corps of Discovery," Wood writes in Prologue. "They were, after all, the first English-speaking explorers known to have penetrated the wilderness that Lewis and Clark would bring to the attention of the world."