Goofs

Lewis Gates reads a newspaper article entitled "Wild Boy Captured" which begins with the sentence, "Two Union Pacific employees working on the tracks... were surprised to find a young boy...". Gates talks to the railroad worker, Mr Hollis, who caught the boy. Gates said to Hollis that he used to work for the railroad, and Hollis replied, "Not just any railroad, son, the great Northern Pacific. 53 years."

Gates is reading a letter by the fire with one glove on. In the next shot he is shown with both gloves off and folding the letter

After the inmates have been killed, and Gates is looking at the broken arrow, is gloves are on, then he looks at the shotgun shells, and his gloves are off, then he looks at the piece of torn shirt, his gloves are back on.

When Yellow Wolf cuts Lewis and Lillian loose, and leads them to see Spotted Elk, the little medicine girl walks out to Zip. When she sits down, Zip is laying down facing her, when the camera angle changes, Zip is now facing away from her.

When Gates goes into town to get the penicillin, he hits his head on a tree branch. Blood is shown on his head immediately. When he stops in the road, there is no blood on his head. Then in the drug store the blood is there again.

Although it is claimed in the film that the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers were among the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians attacked in the infamous massacre at Sand Creek, Colorado Territory, they were not present at this battle. If they had been, the outcome might have been decidedly different. The approximately 500 to 600 Indians camped at Sand Creek were for the most part peaceably inclined, unlike the warrior Dogmen society, and had surrendered to the protection of local military authorities. They were attacked in 1864 by a vengeful Colorado militia that killed 175 Indians, many of whom were women, children and elderly. The survivors fled east to the Republican River in Kansas, where the Dog Soldiers were camped. The film claims the Dogmen fled Sand Creek and were chased into Canada, but in fact, Dog Soldiers were fearsome Cheyenne warriors who never retreated. They waged a bloody war throughout Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado for five years to avenge the Sand Creek Massacre, until they were finally defeated at Summit Springs, Colorado in 1869 by the 5th Cavalry and Pawnee scouts. A few surviving Dogmen wandered north and later joined northern Cheyenne and Sioux bands in the defeat of General Custer at the Little Big Horn.

In the scene where all the Cheyenne are gathered in the lodge, and Lillian is answering their questions about airplanes and how the modern Cheyenne are living, Spotted Elk and Yellow Wolf are both wearing ceremonial feathered war bonnets. They would not have worn such headdresses on such an informal, non-ceremonial, non-war occasion.

When Lilian translates the events that drove the Cheyenne Dogmen into northern Montana, she mixes two different historical events into one - the Cheyenne massacre at Sand Creek, Colorado and the Sioux massacre at Wounded Knee by the 7th Cavalry.

It would be impossible for the tribe to survive as long as stated, with no interaction with any other tribes or people. The tribe would have too much interbreeding.

When Deputy Briggs confronts Louis outside the pharmacy by pointing his sidearm at him, he cocks his Smith & Wesson double-action pistol. No properly trained peace officer would do that -especially a double action semi auto -as it is unnecessary and makes the weapon extremely unsafe. Also, every pistol in this movie seems to make the same cocking sound, Louis's single action Colt, Brigg's and Sheriff Deegan's double-action Smith & Wessons. Neither weapon makes that sound when cocked.

As the three escaped prisoners begin to cross the river, one has hand-cuffs on. As they exit the river on the far side, he no longer has them on. As the prisoners climb the hill on the far-side of the river, the prisoner has hand-cuffs on again (shown by the way he is holding his arms).

When Gates first talks with Sloan at the dig site the door on gates' truck is closed, later in that scene it is open.

When Lewis is caught the deputy puts him in handcuffs, he still has them on when he is trying to shoot the dynamite, but when he and the sheriff get blown out of the cave and into the water Lewis is no longer handcuffed.

Zips' training markers can regularly be seen, a rock outside the bar to make him stop and turn before entering the street, a rock on the floor under the tent at the anthropology dig site that makes him stop and drop the bone he stole, before returning it to the student.

When the Dogmen, Lewis and Lillian emerge from the other side of the waterfall into the Dogmen's home valley, you can clearly see in the background what appears to be a couple ski resort trails.

According to the sheriff "the bus went off the highway near Logan Pass". A couple of things wrong with this: 1. A 'pass' is usually a low spot where one crosses a mountain range. The bus was shown overturned near a creek out on the valley floor, far away from any 'pass'. 2. Logan Pass is the high spot along the Going to the Sun Road.... in the middle of Glacier National Park, probably 30 miles from the nearest highway (outside the park)

To obtain penicillin, Gates robs a pharmacy and sets the law after him because the pharmacist will not sell him any without a prescription. But any horseman as experienced as he is would know that penicillin can be bought from any large-animal veterinarian.