All the next morning, Monday, June 10th, we rode through a delightful region of rolling meadows, beautiful groves of pines and aspens, and cool, clear creeks. Near noon we descended into a fertile valley where we crossed two superb torrential streams and camped at the second under a giant pine. Fennemore felt very sick, which prevented further progress this day, and we put in the afternoon exploring as far as we could the neighbourhood. More lakes were found and as they were in a cup-like depression we called them the "Hidden Lakes." Jack made some fine negatives of several of these pretty bodies of water, two of which I have added to the illustrations of this volume. Not far from our camp two more splendid creeks came together to form one, which Dodds said he thought was that named by them Big Boulder, where it joined the main stream down below. The next morning, Tuesday, we began our day's work by soon crossing Cataract and Cascade creeks before they united to form the Big Boulder, rushing down with an impetuosity that was forbidding. The two forming creeks were much alike, but we could see back in the distance a beautiful cascade of fully 1000 feet in which the second stream originated, and we distinguished it by that name. All day we travelled over a rancher's paradise, meeting no Indians and seeing no recent signs of any except in some filmy smoke mounting mysteriously from canyons in the tangled sandstone labyrinth below. Who were they, how many, and what might be their temper? were questions that came to us as we reflected on the presence there of unknown human beings, and furthermore would we meet them, and if so when? As on the preceding day we crossed many fine brooks which in the dry season probably would not make so vigorous a showing. Late in the afternoon, having travelled fifteen miles, we reached the point where the end of the Wasatch or Aquarius Plateau, the high slope of which we were using as a bridge from Potato Valley to the Unknown Mountains, broke back to the north, cutting us off once more from our objective, for a wide stretch, twenty-five miles in an airline, of ragged desert apparently impassable still intervened. We camped there at a convenient little spring. In the morning I was sent with Johnson for my companion in one direction down the mountain to look for some old trail, while Prof. with Dodds went in another. Scarcely had I gone half a mile when I found tolerably fresh Indian sign, and a mile or two farther on we struck a recently travelled trail. The horses that had gone over it were unshod and there were moccasin tracks indicating Indians without a doubt, but what kind of course the track did not reveal. The trail led towards the Dirty Devil Mountains, and we followed it three or four miles to ascertain with certainty its general course. There was a possibility of our stumbling upon the Indians in camp at some bend, and as this was not desirable for only two of us we turned back as soon as we felt sure of the direction. Prof. had seen no trail at all, and he said we would take the one I had found and follow it. That night was disagreeable and rainy with numberless mosquitoes, but worst of all one of our new men always snored till the ground shook, and owing to the rain we could not get away from him, for we had to remain in the improvised tent to keep dry.

The morning light never was more welcome and we were all up early. The day was fair. We were soon off and made our way down from the grassy heights to the trail, tracing its wearisome twists and turns, sometimes thinking it was not going our way at all when the next turn would be exactly right. In general its course was about east. The land was desolate and dry, and exactly as the region appeared from above, a complete labyrinth of variously coloured cliffs and canyons. Besides being very crooked on account of the nature of the topography, the trail at times was indistinct because of the barren rocks, smooth as a floor, with nothing to take an imprint. In these places we were obliged to make the best guess we could. We came to a place where a valley lay about 1800 feet below us, with the descent to it over bare, smooth, white sandstone almost as steep as a horse could stand on. We travelled a mile and a half over this and then found ourselves in a better looking region where, after a few miles, we discovered a beautiful creek flowing rapidly. There was plenty of good grass and we made our camp beneath some cottonwood trees, having accomplished twenty miles the way we came. Smoke of an Indian fire was rolling up about three miles below us, but we paid little attention to it. Every man delayed putting down his blankets till the champion snorer had selected the site of his bed, and then we all got as far away as the locality would permit. Having slept little the night before, we hardly stirred till morning, and in gratitude we called the stream Pleasant Creek without an attempt at originality.

It was Friday, May 14th, and our long cavalcade proceeded in the usual single file down along the creek in the direction of the Indian smoke. Scarcely had we gone three miles when suddenly we heard a yell and the bark of a dog. Then we discovered two squaws on the other side who had been gathering seeds, and who were now giving the alarm, for we were close upon an Indian camp set on the edge of a low hill on the opposite side of the creek. Our outfit presented rather a formidable appearance, especially as we were an unexpected apparition, and we could see them all running to hide, though I thought for a moment we might have a battle. Without a halt, Prof. led the way across the creek to the foot of the hill, and as we reached the place one poor old man left as a sacrifice came tottering down, so overcome by fear that he could barely articulate, "Hah-ro-ro-roo, towich-a-tick-a-boo," meaning very friendly he was, and extending his trembling hand. Doubtless he expected to be shot on the instant. With a laugh we each shook his hand in turn saying "towich-a-tick-a-boo, old man," and rode up the hill into the camp, where we found all the wickiups with everything lying about just as they had been using it at the moment of receiving the alarm. We dismounted and inducing the terrified old man to sit down in one of the wickiups, Prof. sat with him and we rolled cigarettes, giving him one, and when all were smoking, except Prof. who never used tobacco, we urged him in English and Pai Ute and by signs to call the others back. I walked a few yards out on the hill and just then, with a rush and a clatter of language I could not understand, except "Impoo immy pshakai?" (What do you want?) the two squaws who had been up the creek arrived. The foremost one, frothing at the mouth with excitement and effort, dashed at me with an uplifted butcher knife as if she would enjoy sending it into me, but I laughed at her and she halted immediately in front of me. She broke into a maniacal laugh then and shouted something to the hidden refugees. We persuaded the old man also to call them, and he stepped out from the cedars which grew on the point and spoke a loud sentence. At last they began to appear silently and one by one. There were eight of the men, all well dressed in buckskin, and a number of women and children. When they became confident that we really meant to be friendly they relaxed their vigilance. With the hope of securing a guide and also to study them a little we went into camp in the creek bottom under the hill where they came to visit us. Their language and appearance showed them to be Utes.

When Prof. got back to Kanab he heard that a party of Red Lake Utes had killed a white boy near the Sevier settlements, and he concluded this band must have been the one. They probably thought we were pursuing them into their secret lair to punish them. Their great anxiety to trade for powder indicated their lack of that article and partly explained the precipitousness of their retreat. They had numbers of well dressed buckskins and a very small amount of powder would buy one, but as we had only metallic cartridges we could do little in the line of exchange. To satisfy one of them that we had no loose powder I removed the spring from the magazine of my Winchester and poured the sixteen cartridges out. He had never seen such a gun before and was greatly astonished, though he hardly understood how it worked. Prof. tried his best to persuade one to go with us as a guide, for the labyrinth ahead was a puzzle, but whether through fear or disinclination to leave friends not one would go. The chief gave us a minute description of the trail to the Unknown or Dirty Devil Mountains as well as he could by signs and words, some of which we could not understand, and long afterwards we learned that his information was exactly correct, though at the time through misunderstanding we were not able to follow it. They also told us there was a trail to the big river beyond the mountains.

There was a little canyon in the creek nearby and the water rushed down over a bed of bare rock at an angle of about twenty degrees. We were surprised to discover hundreds of fish six to nine inches long wriggling up the stream along one edge where the water was very shallow. They formed a line from top to bottom.

Unable to secure the guide, we left at six o'clock in the morning, Saturday, June 15th, with all our relations cordial, the Utes going away before we did, and struck out on the trail which led south-eastward from this camp. Travelling twelve miles, we passed through a narrow canyon into a larger one, believing that we were following the chief's direction. Recent heavy rains had washed out the trail, and not knowing its course it was impossible to keep even its general direction. Going up a left-hand branch of the canyon—that is, to the north—we found no exit, so we came down and followed a trail up the right-hand branch till it disappeared, then going back once more to the entrance we again went up the left-hand branch till we came to a vertical wall one thousand feet high, which turned us around. The right-hand one was entered another time, and towards its head where the cliffs could not be climbed we made camp, with an abundance of water which was so strongly alkaline we could not use it and had to keep the stock from it also. Our kegs were full and we did not suffer except by limitation. In the morning we continued up the same canyon till it ended in vertical cliffs, beneath which there was a large pool of pure cool water, with ferns clinging above it to the rocks and rank vegetation all around. This was an immense relief, and we found it hard to turn our backs on so attractive a spot and go down the gorge once more to a point not far below our last camp. Here the walls were about a thousand feet and very precipitous, though somewhat broken. Prof., Jack, Dodds, and I climbed out on the north and hunted for water in different directions on the top. I kept on and on down a dry wash, persisting against the objection of Dodds, who thought it useless, and was at last rewarded by discovering a pocket among the rocks containing several barrels of water, with another that was larger a short distance below in a crevice on a rock-shelf at the brink of a canyon.

We returned to camp with this news, where Prof. and Jack soon joined us. They had found no pockets, but had seen the divide between the waters of the Colorado and the Dirty Devil, which we could follow to the mountains if we could scale the cliffs. Prof. had selected a point where he thought we could mount. With a liberal use of axe, shovel, and pick we succeeded in gaining the summit in an hour and a half. With all the cliff-climbing we had done with horses this seemed to me our paramount achievement. The day was ending by this time, and I led the way with some trepidation towards the pocket I had found, for in my haste to get back I had not carefully noted the topography. The cedars and pinons all looked alike in the twilight shades, and as I went on and on the men behind began to lose faith and made joking remarks about my mental status. I felt certain I was right, yet the distance seemed so much greater in the dusk than when I had traversed it on foot that I was a little disturbed. By the time we at last got to the pocket darkness was upon us, though nobody cared for anything but water, and there it was fresh and pure. The animals and ourselves (Andy filling the kettles first) consumed the entire amount, but it gave each a full drink, and we held the second pool in reserve.



When morning came we engineered a way for the animals down to the shelf where the other pocket was, twenty or thirty feet below, by pulling rocks away in places and piling them up in others. The shelf was perhaps fifty or sixty feet wide, with a sheer plunge of one thousand feet at the outer end into the first canyon we had followed. The animals could not get to the water, but we dipped it out for them in the camp kettles. The way up from the shelf was so very steep that at one point two of us had to put our shoulders to the haunches of some of the horses to "boost" them, while other men pulled on a strong halter from above, and in this way we soon had them all watered and ready for pack and saddle. Keeping along the divide we had comparatively easy going, with the Unknown Mountains ever looming nearer, till their blue mystery vanished and we could discern ordinary rocks and trees composing their slopes. About noon we arrived at the edge of an intervening valley, with the wind blowing so fierce a gale that we could barely see. Crossing this depression we reached a small creek at the foot of the second mountain from the north (now Mt. Pennell), and climbed its slope seventeen hundred feet to a beautiful spring, where we camped, with plenty of fine grass for the famished horses. We had at last traversed the unknown to the unknown, and felt well satisfied with our success. If it had ever been done before by white men there was no knowledge of it.

The temperature was so low that water froze in the camp kettles, and next morning, June 18th, the thermometer stood at 28 deg. F., with the water of the little brook running from the spring at 37 deg. F. After breakfast Prof., Jack, and Dodds climbed the mountain on which we were camped, running their aneroid out, while with Johnson I went down the slope north, crossed the pass, and climbed the first mountain (now Mt. Ellen, after Mrs. Thompson). A severe snow-storm set in, and when we had finally attained a point where our aneroid indicated 11,200 feet above sea-level, we were obliged to turn back because of the lateness of the hour and having no coats, no food, or water. When we reached camp on the other mountain night had come. Andy had been trying to cook some beans, but the high altitude prevented the water from getting hot enough and the operation was incomplete.[30] I foolishly ate some of the beans, being very hungry, with the result that I was sick for the first time on the expedition, suffering a horrible stomach-ache. Though not disabled I was extremely uncomfortable. In the morning we started to go around north through the pass to the east side of the mountain, and I ran in the trail as usual, mounting and dismounting many times, till I was extremely glad after eight miles when we came to the head of a little creek and stopped to enable Prof. to climb the third peak (Mt. Hillers) for observations. While he was gone I was content to lie still in the shade of a bush, and finally lost my pain in sleep. Prof. got back so late that we camped where we were, much to my satisfaction. The view from our camp was extensive and magnificent, the whole Dirty Devil region lying open, like a book, below us.

We were striking for the creek up which Prof. and Cap. had come the year before from the river, for we knew that from its mouth we could easily get to where our Canonita was cached. The next day, June 20th, we continued down Trachyte Creek, as Prof. called it, till four o'clock, passing many old camps and grazing grounds, when we halted for Prof. to climb to a height. The outlook there showed him that this was not the stream whose canyon below we wanted to descend to the river, so the following morning he took Dodds and reconnoitred, the latter after a while returning with orders for us to come on eastward to another canyon. We left Trachyte Creek and reached Prof. at two o'clock. He had prospected a trail, or rather a way, to descend into the canyon over the smooth bare sandstone across which we wound back and forth for a mile, constantly going down into the strange, weird depths till at last we reached the creek bed, where a short distance below we went into camp in a beautiful green cottonwood grove, with enormous pockets of good water close by. By seven o'clock in the morning of the 22d we were going on down the deep, narrow canyon, and arrived at the Colorado at half-past ten. The river was at least fifteen feet higher than last year, and rushed by with a majestic power that was impressive. Our first unusual incident was when Prof.'s horse, in trying to drink from a soft bank, dropped down into the swift current and gave us half an hour's difficult work to get him out. When we had eaten dinner we all went up to the mouth of the Dirty Devil, where we had stored the Canonita, and rejoiced to find her lying just as we left her, except that the water had risen to that level and washed away one of the oars. We caulked the boat temporarily, launched her once more on the sweeping tide, and in two minutes were at our camp, where we hauled her out for the repairs necessary to make her sound for the run to the Paria.

Sunday was the next day, June 23d, and while the others rested I plotted in the trail by which we had crossed to this place so that Prof. could take it out with him, as he decided that Jack, Johnson, Fennemore, and I were to take the boat down, while he, Andy, and Dodds would go back overland to meet Jones and George Adair at the foot of Potato Valley. At five o'clock they left us, going up the same canyon we had come down and which we called Lost Creek Canyon, now Crescent Creek. The next day we recaulked and painted the boat, and I put the name Canonita in red letters on the stern and a red star on each side of the bow. By Wednesday the 26th she was all ready and we put her in the water and ran down four miles to the large Shinumo house. Jack rowed the stern oars, Johnson the bow, I steered, while Fennemore sat on the middle deck. The high water completely obliterated the aggravating shoals which had bothered us the year before, and we had no work at all except to steer or to land, the current carrying us along at a good pace. We stopped occasionally for pictures and notes and got about everything that Jack and Fennemore wanted in the line of photographs. The Fourth of July we celebrated by firing fourteen rounds, and I made a lemon cake and a peach-pie for dinner. On Sunday the 8th we passed the mouth of the stream that had been mistaken for the Dirty Devil, and which Prof. had named Escalante River. It was narrow and shallow and would not be taken at its mouth for so important a tributary. The next day we passed the San Juan which was running a very large stream, and camped at the Music Temple, where I cut Jack's name and mine under those of the Howlands and Dunn. The rapid below was dashing but easy and we ran it without stopping to examine. On Friday the 12th we came to El Vado and dug up a cache we had made there the year before. Our rations for some time were nothing but bread and coffee, and we were glad to see the Echo Peaks and then run in at the mouth of the Paria on Saturday, July 13th, with the expectation of finding men and supplies. The Dean was lying high and dry on the bank and we wondered who had taken her from her hiding-place. Firing our signal shots and receiving no answer, Jack and I went up the Paria, crossing it on a log, and saw a cabin and a farm on the west side. This we knew must be Lee's. He was ploughing in a field, and when he first sighted us he seemed a little startled, doubtless thinking we might be officers to arrest him. One of his wives, Rachel, went into the cabin not far off and peered out at us. She was a fine shot as I afterwards learned. Lee received us pleasantly and invited us to take our meals at his house till our party came. As we had nothing but bread and coffee and not much of these we accepted. The fresh vegetables out of the garden, which his other wife, Mrs. Lee XVIII., served nicely cooked, seemed the most delicious food that could be prepared. Mrs. Lee XVIII. was a stout, comely young woman of about twenty-five, with two small children, and seemed to be entirely happy in the situation. The other wife, whose number I did not learn, left before dark for a house they had at Jacob's Pool and I never saw her again.



Lee had worked hard since his arrival early in the year and now had his farm in fairly good order with crops growing, well irrigated by the water he took out of the Paria. He called the place Lonely Dell, and it was not a misnomer. Johnson made arrangements to go to Kanab the next day, as he concluded that his health would not permit him to go through the Grand Canyon with us, so this was our last night with him. Lee gave me his own version of the Mountain Meadows Massacre claiming that he really had nothing to do with it and had tried to stop it, and when he could not do so he went to his house and cried. The Pai Utes ever after called him Naguts or Crybaby.[31]

In the morning, Sunday, July 14th, Johnson departed with Lee and we expected someone to arrive to bring us news of the Major and Prof., but the sun went down once more without any message. We felt sure that Prof. got out of the Dirty Devil country without accident, but we wanted some definite information of it and we also desired to know when we would resume the canyon voyage. On Monday having nothing else to do we took some hoes and worked in Lee's garden till near noon, when we heard yells which proved to come from Andy and Clem with a waggon needing some help over bad places. We soon had the waggon in a good spot under some willows and there speedily ransacked it for mail, spending the rest of the day reading letters and newspapers. Andy told us that Prof. had reached Kanab with no trouble of any kind. Mrs. Lee XVIII., or Sister Emma, as she would in Utah properly be called, invited us to dinner and supper, and the next day we worked in the garden again, repaired the irrigating ditch, and helped about the place in a general way, glad enough to have some occupation even though the sun was burning hot and the thermometer stood at 110 deg. in the shade. Almost every day we did some work in the garden and we also repaired the irrigating dam.

Our camp was across the Paria down by the Colorado, and when Brother Lee came back the following Sunday he called to give us a lengthy dissertation on the faith of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), while Andy, always up to mischief, in his quiet way, delighted to get behind him and cock a rifle. At the sound of the ominous click Lee would wheel like a flash to see what was up. We had no intention of capturing him, of course, but it amused Andy to act in a way that kept Lee on the qui vive. We got the Nell out of her shed and found her in very bad condition, while the Dean was about as we had left her. Andy and Jack went to work on the Dean and in a few days had her in excellent trim. On July 24th, which is the day the Mormons celebrate for the settlement of Salt Lake Valley, Lee invited us to dinner and supper, which gave us a very pleasant time. So far as our intercourse with Lee was concerned we had no cause for complaint. He was genial, courteous, and generous.

A copy of DeForrest's Overland was in camp and I whiled away some hours reading it, but time began to hang heavily upon us and we daily longed for the appearance of the rest of the party so that we might push out on the great red flood that moved irresistibly down into the maw of Marble Canyon, and end the uncertainty that lay before us. August the first came and still no message. Fennemore now felt so sick that Jack took him to Lee's with rations in order that he might have vegetables with his meals with the hope that he would recover, but he grew worse, and on August 4th he decided that he would return to his home in Salt Lake. We concluded that one of us must go to Kanab to inform Prof. of the state of affairs, and Clem in his big-hearted way offered to do this, but we knew that his sense of locality was defective and that he might get lost. Consequently we played on him an innocent trick which I may now tell as he long ago went "across the range." I planned with Andy that we three were to draw cuts for the honour of the ride and that Andy was to let me draw the fatal one. Clem was greatly disappointed. Jack went on a chase after Nig and ran him down about sunset, for Nig was the most diplomatic mule that ever lived. Having no saddle I borrowed one from Lee who let me have it dubiously as he feared we might be laying some trap. I gave him my word that while I had his saddle no man of ours would molest him, and furthermore that they would befriend him. I rode away while he remarked that in the rocks he could defy an army, with regret still in his eyes, though he accepted my pledge. I got out a few miles before dark and slept by the roadside, with the distant murmur of rapids speaking to me of the turmoil we were soon to pass through. By noon of the next day I was at Jacob's Pool, by half-past three at House Rock Spring, and at night in Summit Valley where I camped. The day was so hot that I could hardly bear my hand on my rifle barrel as it lay across my saddle. My lunch of jerked beef and bread I ate as I rode along thus losing no time.

The trail across the Kaibab was not often travelled, and it was dim and hard to follow, a faint horse track showing here and there, so I lost it several times but quickly picked it up again, and finally came out of the forest where I could see all the now familiar country to the west and north. About two o'clock I arrived at Kanab and rode to Jacob's house where Sister Louisa told me that the Major, Prof., Mrs. Thompson, Professor De Motte, and George Adair had left that very morning for the south end of the Kaibab on the way to the Paria, and that Jones and Lyman Hamblin the day before had started for the Paria with a waggon load of supplies drawn by a team of four broncho mules. Nig being very tired I thought I would rest till morning, when he rewarded my consideration by eluding me till ten o'clock. This gave me so late a start that it was dark and rainy when I descended the east side of the Kaibab, and I had to drag Nig down the 2000 feet in the gloom over boulders, bushes, ledges, or anything else that came, for I could see only a few feet and could not keep the trail. I reached House Rock Spring at last and camped there. In the morning I discovered Jones and Lyman down in the valley and joined them for breakfast, after which I helped them start. This was no easy matter, for the four mules they had in harness, with one exception, were as wild as mountain sheep, having only recently been broken. Jones had been badly kicked three times, his hands were burned by the ropes, and there was a lively time whenever the excited animals were put to the waggon. The road was new, only a waggon track in reality, and the mules became more and more docile through exhaustion as the day went on. At night they were far safer to handle than in the morning.

July 9th about dark we arrived at Lonely Dell, Lee stealing suspiciously in behind where I was walking, to ask me who the men were and what they wanted. We had a joyful time, especially as Steward had sent out a large box of fine candy which we found in the mail and opened at once. Four days later the Major and his party came from the Kaibab and we had venison for supper. The Major said we would go on down the Colorado as soon as possible though the water was still very high.



FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 30: We had not yet learned to put a tight cover on the bean pot, and then by means of a big stone on the cover and a hot fire create an artificial atmosphere within it, thus raising the temperature.]

[Footnote 31: Lee was executed for the crime five years later, 1877. Others implicated were not punished, the execution of Lee "closing the incident."]



CHAPTER XIV

A Company of Seven.—The Nellie Powell Abandoned.—Into Marble Canyon.—Vasey's Paradise.—A Furious Descent to the Little Colorado.—A Mighty Fall in the Dismal Granite Gorge.—Caught in a Trap.—Upside Down.—A Deep Plunge and a Predicament.—At the Mouth of the Kanab.

We now missed Steward, Cap, and Beaman more than ever, for we had been unable to get anyone to take their places. The fact was our prospective voyage through Marble and Grand canyons was considered almost a forlorn hope and nobody cared to take the risk. The plan had been to give me the steering of the Canonita, but now with three boats and only seven to man them it was plain that one must be abandoned. An examination of them all showed that the Nellie Powell was in the poorest condition and she was chosen for the sacrifice. She was put back in her shelter being afterwards used by Lee for a desultory ferry business, that developed. About ten days before our arrival, the Dean had been discovered by a newspaper man named J. H. Beadle, and used to cross to the north side where he left her. This was how she happened to be there when we came. Beadle had denounced Lee and the Mormons in print and tried to conceal his identity by assuming the name of Hanson, a plan frustrated by his having some clothes, marked with his own name, laundered by Sister Emma. Lee was only amused by the incident. The Dean was to be manned by the same crew as before; Jones to steer, Jack at the after oars, I at the forward pair, and the Major in his usual place on the middle deck. The Canonita was to have Prof. as steersman, Andy at the stroke oars, and Clem in the bow, Clem having gotten all over his inclination to leave and being determined now to see the end of the voyage before he departed.

The same day that the Major and his party arrived, Jack and I, with Jones steering, tried the Dean by taking Mrs. Thompson, Professor DeMotte, and Lyman Hamblin up the river so that they might see what a canyon was like from a boat. Mrs. Thompson was so enthusiastic that she declared she wanted to accompany us. Prof. took her as passenger on the Canonita about half-past four on Wednesday, August 14th, when we had completed the sacking and packing of provisions, and with both boats ran down through a small rapid or two about a mile and a half, where we camped at the mouth of a little canyon down which the waggon-road came. Mrs. Thompson enjoyed the exhilaration of descending the swift rushing water and still thought it attractive. I went to Lee's and brought down the Major's arm-chair for our boat, and saw Fennemore who was very sick. We made our final preparations at this point, and I spent most of Thursday morning helping the Major get his papers in order so that if we did not appear again his affairs could be readily settled. This required considerable writing, which I did, for the Major wrote slowly with his left hand, the only one he had. We dined with Lee, having the first watermelon of the season for dessert. Lee was most cordial and we could not have asked better treatment than he gave us the whole time we were at Lonely Dell. In the afternoon our land outfit left for Kanab and we said a last good-bye to the men, who looked as if they never expected to see us again. Only the "Tirtaan Aigles" remained, and there were but seven of these now. The next day we put the finishing touches on the boats, and while we were doing this our late fellow voyageur Beaman, and a companion named Carleton, passed on their way to the Moki Towns where Beaman wanted to make photographs. All being ready the next day, Saturday, August 17th, we pushed out on the mighty Colorado about nine o'clock and by noon ran into Marble Canyon, nearly five miles, passing one small rapid and another of considerable size on a river about one hundred feet wide and extremely swift, with straight walls rapidly increasing from the fifty feet or so at the Paria. Marble Canyon while differing in name is but the upper continuation of the Grand Canyon, there being no line of demarkation other than a change in geological structure and the entrance of the canyon of the Little Colorado. The combined length of the two divisions is 283 miles and the declivity is very great. The altitude of the mouth of the Paria is 3170 feet, while the Grand Wash at the end of the Grand Canyon is 840 feet, leaving a descent of 2330 feet still before us.

At our dinner camp, which was on a talus on the left, the walls were about 500 feet and quite precipitous, but I was able to climb out on the right to get a view of the surroundings. After dinner we went on in our usual order, our boat the Dean in advance and the Canonita following. The photographing now devolved entirely on Jack and Clem; Andy as usual ran the culinary branch of the expedition, Jones and Prof. meandered the river. We had not gone far after dinner before we were close upon a bad-looking rapid, a drop of about eighteen feet in a distance of 225, which we concluded to defeat by means of a portage on the right-hand bank. As we knew exactly what to do no time was wasted and we were soon below, sweeping on with a stiff current which brought us, in about ten miles from our morning start and five from the noon halt, to a far worse rapid than the last, a fall of twenty-five feet in four or five hundred, with very straight walls six hundred feet high on both sides. The Major concluded to leave the passage of it till the next day, and we went into camp at the head. This was the rapid where disaster fell on the miners, ten in number, who in the spring had stolen a lot of our things at the Paria and started down prospecting on a raft. They saved their lives but not another thing, and after a great deal of hard work they succeeded by means of driftwood ladders in climbing to the top of the walls and made their way to the settlement. This is now called Soap Creek Rapid, being at the mouth of the canyon by which the little stream of that name reaches the river,—a little stream which at times is a mighty torrent. In a small rapid following or in the final portion of this, I believe, is the place where Frank M. Brown, leader of the Denver, Colorado Canyon, and Pacific Railway Survey, was drowned in 1889.

We began work on Sunday, August 18th, by making the portage and had no trouble of any kind, Jack and Clem making some photographs before we finally said good-bye to the place. Continuing on our way we found the river very narrow, not over seventy-five feet in many places and ranging from that to two hundred, with frequent whirlpools strong enough to swing our boats entirely around. Before dinner-time we had put five large rapids behind, and then we halted under a ledge on the left a short distance above a very ugly and difficult prospect. There was an exceedingly heavy descent and a soft sandstone being at the river margin it was worn away, giving little chance for a footing by which to make a portage. The Major and Prof. decided that we could run it safely, and after dinner we shot into it, both boats going through in fine style. Just below was another smaller one that was vanquished easily, and we went swiftly on down the swirling, booming current. Rain fell at intervals to continue our saturation, and with four more rapids, all of which we ran, one having quite a heavy fall, there was little chance for us to dry out. At one point we passed an enormous rock which had dropped from the cliffs overhead and almost blocked the whole river. Then we arrived at a huge rapid whose angry tones cried so distinctly, "No running through here," that we did not hesitate but began a let down forthwith, and when that was accomplished we camped at the foot of it for the night, having come eleven and three-eighths miles during the day. The rapid was extremely noisy and the roaring reverberated back and forth from cliff to cliff as it ascended to the top, 1800 feet, to escape into the larger air. The walls had two or three terraces and were not over three quarters of a mile apart at the summit, the cliff portions being nearly or quite perpendicular. The rocks, of all sizes, which were legion at each rapid, were frequently dovetailed into each other by the action of the current and so neatly joined in a serrated line that they were practically one.



The rapidity with which the water went down and the walls went up as we cut into the plateau gave a vivid impression of descending into the very bowels of the earth, and this impression seemed daily to intensify. On Monday, August 19th, the same conditions prevailed, the walls being of marble mostly vertical from the water's edge for about seven hundred feet, and then rising by four terraces to two thousand feet, all stained red by the disintegration of iron-stained rocks overhead though the marble is a grey colour. We only made four and one-quarter miles and established Camp 90 on the left, just below a big rapid and in sight of another, with a record for the whole day of four rapids run, three passed by let-downs, and one overcome by a portage. The next day we did not accomplish a much greater distance, only about nine miles, but we were highly successful in our encounters with the enemy, running no less than twelve big rapids and making a portage at another to round out the dozen on the baker's proverbial basis. The average width of the canyon at the top was about one and a quarter miles, while the breadth of the water itself plunging along the bottom was not more than 125 feet, and the total height of wall was 2500 feet. We had marble at the river margin most of the day, a greyish crystalline rock fluted multitudinously in places by the action of high water and sometimes polished like glass. While this was a grey rock the entire effect of the canyon, for the reason stated above, was red. On the right bank we made our camp on some sand at the mouth of a gulch, and immediately put on our dry clothes from the boats. Not far below on the same side was what appeared to be a vast ruined tower. Around the indentations which answered for crumbling windows bunches of mosses and ferns were draped, while from the side, about one hundred feet up from the river, clear springs broke forth to dash down amidst verdure in silvery skeins. The whole affair formed a striking and unusual picture, the only green that so far had been visible in the canyon landscape, for the walls from brink to river were absolutely barren of trees or any apparent vegetation. On the former trip the Major had named the place after a botanist friend of his, Vasey's (Vaysey) Paradise, and this was now recorded in our notes. All day long we had seen in the magnificent walls besides caverns and galleries resemblances to every form of architectural design, turrets, forts, balconies, castles, and a thousand strange and fantastic suggestions from the dark tower against which Childe Roland with his slug-horn blew defiance, to the airy structures evolved by the wonderful lamp of Aladdin.

Starting down again on Wednesday morning we ran past the Paradise and heard a little bird singing there amidst the spray and mosses, a delicate note seeming out of place amidst such gigantic desolation. Only the boom of great cannon or the tone of some enormous organ pipe would be correct with the surroundings. The walls at the water's edge were vertical for long distances up to eight hundred feet, and being now in all about three thousand feet and not a great ways apart, the outlook ahead was something almost overpowering in its deep suggestion of mysterious and untold realms to come. On the first voyage it would have been easy to persuade oneself that the river was soon to become subterranean, but the Major having solved the enigma, we could look with indifference on the threatening prospect. Yet the walls nevertheless seemed to have a determination to close together overhead as we looked down the descending waters before us, with cliff mounting on cliff and the distance from one to the other appearing so very small. Deep and sombre were the shadows at the bends, and the imagination needed no spur to picture there rapids, falls, cataracts, of giant proportions. We made nearly eleven miles and ran ten very big rapids, meeting with no accident, though one was particularly violent and filled us half full of water in the fierce breakers. The stage of water was exactly right for this stretch; a lower stage would certainly have given us far more trouble. Our stop for the night, Camp 92, was made on a wide sandbank on the left, with some mesquite growing nearby, our first acquaintance with this tree on the river. We now were getting on so well and were so comfortable that we felt quite happy and Jack as usual entertained us with several songs. The next day, Thursday the 22d, Jack and Clem took some photographs in the morning and I hunted fossils for the Major in the limestone shales which had run up under the marble. By nine o'clock we were packed up again in our usual good form, everything in the rubber sacks, hatches firmly battened down, life-preservers ready, and we set forth for another day's battle. There were numerous large rapids and the impetuous river, turbid and grim, rushed down with a continuity that kept us alert every instant. Though we descended with terrific velocity, nothing gave us any particular trouble before dinner, which we ate in the shade of a mesquite on the right at the mouth of a couple of giant gulches. Here we discovered a large patch of cacti loaded with the red prickly pears or cactus apples, as we called them. They were ripe,—seeming to me to be half way between a fig and a tomato,—and very welcome for dessert, as we had eaten no fresh fruit since a watermelon brought along as far as the first noon camp. All the vegetation was different from that of the upper canyons and of a kind indicating a hotter climate; cacti, yucca, etc. In the afternoon the walls became greater, the river ran swifter, the descent seemed almost without a break, for rapid followed rapid in such quick succession that it was next to impossible to separate them one from another. At times we could barely maintain control of the boats so powerful and uninterrupted was the turbulent sweep of the great narrow flood. At one place as we were being hurled along at a tremendous speed we suddenly perceived immediately ahead of us and in such a position that we could not avoid dashing into it, a fearful commotion of the waters, indicating many large rocks near the surface. The Major stood on the middle deck, his life-preserver in place, and holding by his left hand to the arm of the well secured chair to prevent being thrown off by the lurching of the boat, peered into the approaching maelstrom. It looked to him like the end for us and he exclaimed calmly, "By God, boys, we're gone!" With terrific impetus we sped into the seething, boiling turmoil, expecting to feel a crash and to have the Dean crumble beneath us, but instead of that unfortunate result she shot through smoothly without a scratch, the rocks being deeper than appeared by the disturbance on the surface. We had no time to think over this agreeable delivery, for on came the rapids or rather other rough portions of the unending declivity requiring instant and continuous attention, the Major rapidly giving the orders, Left, right, hard on the right, steady, hard on the left, hard on the left, h-a-r-d on the left, pull away strong, etc., Jones aiding our oars by his long steering sweep. Rowing for progress was unnecessary; the oars were required only for steering or for pulling as fast as we could to avoid some bad place.

At the same time the walls constantly gained height as the torrent cut down its bed till both together, with the rapidity of our movement, fairly made one dizzy. In turning a bend we saw back through a gulch the summit of the Kaibab's huge cliffs, the total height above our heads being over five thousand feet; a sublime vista. The immediate walls of Marble Canyon were here about 3500 feet, not all vertical but rising in buttresses, terraces, and perpendicular faces, while immediately at the river they were now generally flanked by talus or broken ledges giving ample footing, as seen in the illustration opposite page 219. Words are not adequate to describe this particular day in Marble Canyon; it must be experienced to be appreciated and I will not strive further to convey my impressions. As the sun sank to the western edge of the outer world we were rushing down a long straight stretch of canyon, and the colossal precipices looming on all sides, as well as dead ahead across our pathway, positively appeared about to overwhelm the entire river by their ponderous magnificence, burnished at their summits by the dying sun. On, down the headlong flood our faithful boats carried us to the gloom that seemed to be the termination of all except subterranean progress, but at the very bottom of this course there was a bend to the west, and we found ourselves at the mouth of a deep side canyon coming in from the east, with a small stream flowing into the big river. This was the mouth of the Little Colorado and the end at last of Marble Canyon, one of the straightest, deepest, narrowest, and most majestic chasms of the whole long series. It also had more wall rising vertically from the water's edge than any other canyon we had encountered.

Our distance for the day was eighteen miles with eighteen rapids, one nearly three miles long and all following each other so closely they were well-nigh continuous. We ran seventeen and made one let-down. It was a glorious day and a fitting preparation for our entrance into the next stupendous canyon which the Major styled the "Sockdologer of the World," the now famous Grand Canyon.[32] Our altitude was 2690 feet, giving a descent in the sixty-five and one-half miles of Marble Canyon of 480 feet, leaving 1850 feet still to be overcome before we could reach the mouth of the Grand Wash and the end of the Grand Canyon. I counted sixty-three rapids in Marble Canyon, Prof. sixty-nine. We made four portages and let down by line six times.



Our Camp 93 was on the left bank of the Little Colorado, and there we remained for Friday, August 23d, to reconnoitre the neighbourhood, and to give Prof. an opportunity to get the latitude and longitude. The Little Colorado was a red stream about sixty feet wide and four or five deep, salty and impossible to drink. The Great Colorado was also muddy and not altogether palatable, for one's hand dipped in and allowed to dry became encrusted with sediment; but the water otherwise was pure. The river had been rapidly rising for several days and was still coming up so that we were likely to have in the Grand Canyon more water than we required. I climbed up the wall on the north side of the Little Colorado thinking I might be able to reach the summit, but when about half-way up I met vast and vertical heights that were impossible and returned to camp. The next morning, Saturday, August 24th, we packed up and entered the Grand Canyon proper on an easy river, making about five miles in half an hour and putting behind six rapids all small, camping at the head of one that was more threatening. Here a little creek came in from the right, or west, near camp. The canyon was wider than above, and we could see the summits around that were six thousand feet above the river, but some miles back. In the morning I made a geological sketch, and in the afternoon I climbed a high peak and put in some of the topography. The next morning we crossed the river to examine a large igneous butte where we found a small vein of copper ore, and after dinner Prof. and I climbed a couple of peaks and did some triangulating. Monday the 26th found us still at Camp 94 to further investigate the surroundings, and the Major, Prof., Jones, and I climbed up on the north about 2600 feet in order to get a better idea of the several valleys which here seemed to compose the bottom of the great chasm, and did not reach camp till after dark. Everything now developed on a still larger and grander scale; we saw before us an enormous gorge, very wide at the top, which could engulf an ordinary mountain range and lose it within its vast depths and ramifications. Multitudinous lofty mesas, buttes, and pinnacles began to appear, each a mighty mountain in itself, but more or less overwhelmed by the greater grandeur of the Cyclopean environment.

Tuesday, August 27th, after Prof. had put a new tube in the second barometer which had somehow been broken, we pushed off once more to see what the day would develop. The rapid just below camp we ran through easily and then made swift progress for seven miles, running nine more rapids, two rather bad ones. The Canonita grounded once on a shoal but got off without damage. Where we stopped for dinner we caught sight of two mountain sheep drinking, and Andy and I got our guns out of the cabins as quickly as possible and started after them, but they flew away like birds of the air. Near this point there was a small abandoned hut of mesquite logs. We went into camp farther down on the left for investigations, the Major and I going up the river and finding a small salty creek which we followed for a time on an old trail, the Major studying the geology and collecting specimens of the rocks, which we carried back to camp, arriving after dark. The geology and topography here were complicated and particularly interesting, and we ought to have been able to spend more days, but the food question, as well as time, was a determining factor in our movements, and with only two boats our rations would carry us with necessary stops only to the mouth of the Kanab Canyon where our pack-train would meet us on September 4th. There was no other place above Diamond Creek known at that time, except perhaps the spot near Mount Trumbull, where supplies could be brought in. On Wednesday we ran two or three miles and stopped for our photographers to get some views opposite a rust-coloured sandstone. We also had dinner at this place and then continued the descent. After running four rapids successfully, making a let-down at another, and a portage over the upper end of a sixth we were ready, having made in all six miles, to go into camp part way down the last, one of the heaviest falls we had so far encountered. It was perhaps half a mile long, with a declivity of at least forty feet, studded by numerous enormous boulders. A heavy rain began during our work of getting below, and our clothes being already wet the air became very chilly. We had to carry the cargoes only a short distance, with no climbing, and there was ample room so the portage was not difficult in that respect. But though we could manoeuvre the empty boats down along the shore amidst the big rocks, they were exceedingly heavy for our small band, and in sliding them down between the huge masses, with the water pouring around and often into them, we sometimes had as much as we could do to manage them, each man being obliged to strain his muscle to the limit. Jack from this cause hurt his back so badly that he could not lift at all, and overcome by the sudden weakness and pain he came near sinking into the swift river at the stern of the Dean where he happened at the moment to be working. I heard his cry and clambered over to seize him as quickly as I could, helping him to shore, where we did all that was possible for his comfort. As we were going no farther that day he was able to rest, and in the morning felt much better, though his back was still weak. Andy took his place in our boat to run the lower end of the rapid, which was easily done. We landed below on the same side, enabling Andy to go back to help bring down the Canonita, while Jack walked along the rocks to where we were. Here we remained for a couple of hours while I climbed up for the Major and measured the "Red Beds," and Jack rested again, improving very fast. When we were ready to go on his trouble had almost disappeared.



A dark granite formation had run up at the foot of the last fall and it rose rapidly higher, hemming the water in with steep, forbidding cliffs close together. The river became much narrower and swirled with an oily-looking current around the buttresses of granite that thrust themselves from one side or the other into it. The declivity was not great and the torrent was otherwise placid. After three miles of this ominous docility, just as the dinner hour was near and the threatening black granite had risen to one thousand feet above the water, we heard a deep, sullen roar ahead and from the boats the whole river seemed to vanish instantly from earth. At once we ran in on the right to a small area of great broken rocks that protruded above the water at the foot of the wall, and stepping out on these we could look down on one of the most fearful places I ever saw or ever hope to see under like circumstances,—a place that might have been the Gate to Hell that Steward had mentioned. We were near the beginning of a tremendous fall. The narrow river dropped suddenly and smoothly away, and then, beaten to foam, plunged and boomed for a third of a mile through a descent of from eighty to one hundred feet, the enormous waves leaping twenty or thirty feet into the air and sending spray twice as high.[33] On each side were the steep, ragged granitic walls, with the tumultuous waters lashing and pounding against them in a way that precluded all idea of portage or let-down. It needed no second glance to tell us that there was only one way of getting below. If the rocks did not stop us we could "cross to Killiloo," and when a driving rain had ceased Andy gathered the few sticks of driftwood available for a fire, by which he prepared some dinner in advance of the experiment. Jack and Clem took three negatives, and when the dinner was disposed of we stowed all loose articles snugly away in the cabins, except a camp-kettle in each standing-room to bail with, and then battening down the hatches with extra care, and making everything shipshape, we pulled the Dean up-stream, leaving the Canonita and her crew to watch our success or failure and profit by it. The Major had on his life-preserver and so had Jones, but Jack and I put ours behind our seats, where we could catch them up quickly, for they were so large we thought they impeded the handling of the oars. Jack's back had fortunately now recovered, so that he was able to row almost his usual stroke. We pulled up-stream about a quarter of a mile close to the right-hand wall, in order that we might get well into the middle of the river before making the great plunge, and then we turned our bow out and secured the desired position as speedily as possible, heading down upon the roaring enemy—roaring as if it would surely swallow us at one gulp.



My back being towards the fall I could not see it, for I could not turn round while waiting every instant for orders. Nearer and nearer came the angry tumult; the Major shouted "Back water!" there was a sudden dropping away of all support; then the mighty waves smote us. The boat rose to them well, but we were flying at twenty-five miles an hour and at every leap the breakers rolled over us. "Bail!" shouted the Major,—"Bail for your lives!" and we dropped the oars to bail, though bailing was almost useless. The oars could not get away, for they had rawhide rings nailed around near the handle to prevent them from slipping through the rowlocks. The boat rolled and pitched like a ship in a tornado, and as she flew along Jack and I, who faced backwards, could look up under the canopies of foam pouring over gigantic black boulders, first on one side, then on the other. Why we did not land on top of one of these and turn over I don't know, unless it might be that the very fury of the current causes a recoil. However that may be, we struck nothing but the waves, the boats riding finely and certainly leaping at times almost half their length out of water, to bury themselves quite as far at the next lunge. If you will take a watch and count by it ninety seconds, you will probably have about the time we were in this chaos, though it seemed much longer to me. Then we were through, and immediately took advantage of an eddy on one side to lie to and bail out, for the boat was full of water. Setting her to rights as quickly as we could, we got ready to make a dash for the crew of the Canonita in case she fared worse than we did. We looked anxiously for her to appear, and presently, at the top of what seemed to us now to be a straight wall of foam, her small white bulk hung for an instant and then vanished from our sight in the mad flood. Soon appearing at the bottom uninjured, she ran in to where we were waiting. The Canonita, being lighter than our boat, did not ship as much water as in some other places, and altogether we agreed that notwithstanding its great descent and furious aspect the passage was not more difficult than we had made in several previous rapids.

Continuing on down the narrow and gloomy granite gorge, we encountered about a mile farther down a singular rapid, which turned the Canonita completely around. About four o'clock we found ourselves before another tremendous fall, and a very ugly one. Landing on the left, we discovered that to be the wrong side, and crossed over to a little cove where there was a patch of gravel, surrounded by vertical walls, the crossing being easily made because the water seemed to slacken before the plunge. We did not intend to run the place if it could be avoided, and the south side gave no opportunity whatever for a portage, while the north side offered no very easy course. Prof. declared this to be one of the worst rapids we had seen, and we were now about two hundred feet above the head of it, with the vertical cliffs between. Immediately at the beginning of the drop on the same side that we were on was a pile of boulders, and our plan was to engineer the boats by lines from where we had landed down to these rocks, from which we believed we could work around over the rocks into an alcove there was there, and thence go down till we reached the lower part of the descent, through which we could navigate. Consequently several of the men entered one boat, and we lowered her from the stern of the second as far as her line would reach, and then lowered the second till the first lodged in the rocks at the desired point at the head of the fall. Then, pulling up the second boat, we who had remained got on board, and by clinging to the projections of the wall, the current close in being quite slow, we succeeded in arriving alongside the first boat. The next thing was to get around into the alcove. The sky above was heavy and rain began to come down steadily, making the dark granite blacker and intensifying the gloomy character of the locality. By hard work we finally got our boats across the rocks and down about two hundred feet farther into a cove, where they rested easily. Up to this time we had made in all, during the day, seven and one-quarter miles. As night was now dropping fast we had to make camp on a pile of broken granite, where a close search yielded an armful or two of small pieces of driftwood, all wet. Under a rock several dry sticks were discovered, and by their aid a fire soon blazed up by which the indomitable Andy proceeded to get supper. There was no use changing wet clothes for dry ones from the rubber bags as long as the rain fell, and it increased till water was dashing off the walls in streams. The thunder roared and crashed as if it were knocking the cliffs about to rearrange them all, and a deluge swept down in which Andy's struggling little fire died with hardly a sputter. The only thing remaining for us to do was to all stand with our backs against the foot of the wall, which was still warm from the day, and wait for something else to happen. The bread-pan seen through the dim and dismal light was a tempestuous lake, with an island of dough in it, while Andy the undaunted stood grimly gazing at it, the rain dribbling from his hat and shoulders till he resembled the fabled ferryman of the River Styx. The situation was so ludicrous that every one laughed, and the Weather God finding that we were not downcast slackened the downpour immediately. Then we put some oars against the wall and stretched a paulin to protect our noble chef, who finally got the wet firewood once more ignited, and succeeded in getting the bread almost baked and the coffee nearly hot and some dried peaches almost stewed. The rain ceasing, we hurriedly donned dry clothes and applied ourselves to the destruction of these viands, which tasted better than might be imagined. Each man then took his blankets, and, selecting rocks that in his judgment were the softest, he went to sleep.

There was another alcove about three hundred yards below our camp, and in the morning, Friday, August 30th, we proceeded to work our way down to this, several men clambering along a ledge about 150 feet above the water with the line, while I remained each time in the boat below with an oar to keep the bow in against the wall, so that she could not take the current on the wrong side—that is, on the side next to the wall—and cut out into the river. In this way we got both boats down to the alcove, whence we intended to pull out into the current and run the lower portion of the rapid. It was only noon when we reached the place, but then we discovered that both boats had been so pounded that they badly needed repairs—in fact, it was imperative to halt there for this purpose,—and we hauled them out on a patch of broken rocks, thirty or forty feet square, filling the curve of the alcove and bounded by vertical rocks and the river. While at work on them we happened to notice that the river was rapidly rising, and, setting a mark, the rate was found to be three feet an hour. The rocks on which we were standing and where all the cargo was lying were being submerged. We looked around for some way to get up the cliff, as it was now too late to think of leaving. About fifteen feet above the top of the rocks on which we were working there was a shelf five or six feet wide, to which some of the men climbed, and we passed up every article to them. When the repairs were done darkness was filling the great gorge. By means of lines from above and much hard lifting we succeeded in raising the boats up the side of the cliff, till they were four or five feet above the highest rocks of the patch on which we stood. This insured their safety for the time being, and if the river mounted to them we intended to haul them still higher. The next thing was to find a place to sleep. By walking out on a ledge from the shelf where our goods were we could turn a jutting point above the rushing river by clinging closely to the rocks, and walk back on a shelf on the other side to a considerable area of finely broken rocks, thirty feet above the torrent, where there was room enough for a camp. Rain fell at intervals, and the situation was decidedly unpromising. While Andy and the others were getting the cook outfit and rations around the point, I climbed the cliffs hunting for wood. I found small pieces of driftwood lodged behind mesquite bushes fully one hundred feet above the prevailing stage of water. I collected quite an armful of half-dead mesquite, which has the advantage of being so compact that it makes a fire hot as coal, and little is needed to cook by. Supper was not long in being despatched, and then, every man feeling about worn out, we put on dry clothes, the rain having ceased, and went to sleep on the rocks. Before doing so we climbed back to examine the boats, and found the river was not coming up farther, though it had almost completely covered the rocks.

Saturday, the 21st of August, 1872, was about the gloomiest morning I ever saw. Rain was falling, the clouds hung low over our heads like a lid to the box-like chasm in the black, funereal granite enclosing us, while the roar of the big rapid seemed to be intensified. We felt like rats in a trap. Eating breakfast as quickly as possible, we got everything together again on the shelf and lowered the boats. Though the river was not rising, it beat and surged into the cove in a way that made the boats jump and bounce the moment they touched the water. To prevent their being broken by pounding, one man at each steadied them while the others passed down the sacks and instrument boxes. Then it was seen that either a new leak had sprung in the Dean amidships or a hole had not been caulked, for a stream as wide as two fingers was spurting into the middle cabin. To repair her now meant hauling both boats back against the side of the cliff and spending another day in this trap, with the chance of the river rising much higher before night so that we might not be able to get away at all—at least not for days. For an instant the Major thought of pulling the boats out again, but as his quick judgment reviewed the conditions he exclaimed, "By God, we'll start! Load up!" It was the rarest thing for him to use an oath, and I remember only one other occasion when he did so—in Marble Canyon when he thought we were going to smash. We threw the things in as fast as we could, jammed a bag of flour against the leak in the Dean, battened down the hatches, threw our rifles into the bottom of the standing rooms where the water and sand washed unheeded over them, and jumped to our oars. The crew of the Canonita held our stern till the bow swung out into the river, and then at the signal Jack and I laid to with all our strength—to shoot clear of an enormous rock about fifty feet below against which the fierce current was dashing. The Dean was so nearly water-logged that she was sluggish in responding to the oars, but we swept past the rock safely and rolled along down the river in the tail of the rapid with barely an inch of gunwale to spare,—in fact I thought the boat might sink. As soon as we saw a narrow talus on the right we ran in and landed.

When the Canonita was ready to start one of Clem's oars could not be found, and Prof. had to delay to cut down one of the extras for him. Then they got their boat up as far as they could, and while Prof. and Andy kept her from pounding to pieces, Clem got in, bailed out, and took his oars. Prof. then climbed in at the stern, but the current was so strong that it pulled Andy off his feet and he was just able to get on, the boat drifting down stern first toward the big rock. Prof. concluded to let the stern strike and then try to throw the boat around into the river. By this time Andy had got hold of his oars, and the eddy seemed to carry them up-stream some twenty-five feet, so perverse and capricious is the Colorado. They swung the bow to starboard into the main current, and with a couple of strong oar-strokes the dreaded rock was cleared, and down the Canonita came to us over the long waves like a hunted deer. We unloaded the Dean and pulled her out for repairs, but it was after four o'clock when we were able to go on again with a fairly tight boat. Then for eight miles the river was a continuous rapid broken by eight heavy falls, but luckily there were no rocks in any of them at this stage of water, and we were able to dash through one after another at top speed, stopping only once for examination. Two of these rapids were portages on the former trip, proving the ease and advantage of high water in some places; but the disadvantages are much greater. Through a very narrow canyon on the right we caught a glimpse of a pretty creek, but we were going so fast the view was brief and imperfect. At 5:15 o'clock we ran up to a wide sandbank on which grew a solitary willow tree and there Camp 99 was made. For a space the inner canyon was much wider than above and the mouth of Bright Angel Creek was just below us; a locality now well known because a trail from the Hotel Tovar on the south rim comes down at this point. The name was applied by the Major on his first trip to offset the name Dirty Devil applied farther up.



The next day was Sunday, September 1st, and after the Major had climbed the south wall for observations we started once more on a powerful current. For the first three miles there was a continuous rapid with no opportunity to land. We dashed through waves that tossed us badly and filled the boats half full and then half full again before we had a chance to bail. In fifteen minutes we made the three miles and a half mile more, to arrive at a heavy rapid, which we ran and in two miles reached another with fearful waves, which we also ran. In one Jones was overbalanced by his oar hitting the top of a big wave behind the boat and he was knocked out. He clung by his knees and hands, his back in the water, and the boat careened till I thought she would go over. We could not move to help him without upsetting and were compelled to leave him to his own resources. In some way he succeeded in scrambling back. The waves were tremendous and sometimes seemed to come from all directions at once. There were whirlpools, too, that turned us round in spite of every effort to prevent it. The river was about one hundred and fifty feet wide. After an extremely strenuous morning we halted on the right for dinner, continuing as soon as we had disposed of it. Presently we arrived at a sharp fall of about twenty feet, where we made a portage, and waited at the foot for the photographers to take some negatives and also for repairing the Canonita. Finally it was decided to camp on the spot. It was Camp 100. Our record for the day was a trifle over seven miles with nine rapids run and one portage.

Almost the first thing in the morning of September 2d was a portage, after which we had fair water for two or three miles, and then reached a very heavy fall, where we landed on the left and had dinner before making another portage. This accomplished, we proceeded on a river still rising and ran a great many bad rapids, some of them having tremendous falls. In one the fierce current set against the cliff so strongly that we were carried within an oar's length of it, notwithstanding our severe effort to avoid so close an acquaintance with the rough wall. Even between rapids the velocity of the water was extremely high and we flew along at terrific speed, while in the huge waves of the rapids the boats leaped and plunged with startling violence. Toward night a sudden halt was made on the left to examine a bad-looking place half a mile below. The Major and Prof. tried to climb where they could get a good view of it, but they failed. The Major said we would run it in the morning, though Prof. was dubious about the feasibility of doing so successfully and said he thought it about the worst place we had yet seen. We camped on a rocky talus where we were. A small sandbank was found nearby for our beds, and we made another discovery, a small pool of clear, pure water, a rare treat after the muddy Colorado which we had been drinking for so long. Twenty rapids were placed to our credit for this one day in a trifle over fifteen miles, and we felt that we were vanquishing the Grand Canyon with considerable success.

Our life now was so strenuous every hour of the day that our songs were forgotten, and when night came every man was so used up that as soon as supper was over rest and sleep were the only things that interested us. Though our beds were as hard and rough as anything could be, we slept with the intensity of the rocks themselves, and it never seemed more than a few minutes before we were aroused by the Major's rising signal "Oh-ho, boys!" and rose to our feet to pack the blankets in the rubber bags, sometimes with a passing thought as to whether we would ever take them out again. For my part, never before nor since have I been so tired. One night when the Major called us to look out for the boats I did not hear him and no one waked me so I slept on, learning about it only the next morning. Our food supply was composed partly of jerked beef, and as this could not be put in rubber because of the grease it became more or less damp and there developed in it a peculiar kind of worm, the largest about an inch long, with multitudinous legs. There were a great many of them and they gave the beef a queer taste. In order to clear the sacks as far as possible of these undesirable denizens I several times emptied them on wide smooth rocks, and while the worms were scrambling around I scraped up the beef without many of them, but could not get rid of all. Andy's method of cooking this beef was to make a gravy with bacon fat and scorched flour and then for a few moments stew the beef in the gravy. Ordinarily this made a very palatable dish but the peculiar flavour of the beef now detracted from it, though we were so hungry that we could eat anything without a query, and our diminishing supply of rations forbade the abandonment of the valuable beef.

When we arose on the morning of September 3d the dubious rapid was tossing its huge waves exactly as on the night before and humanity seemed to be out of the reckoning. By eight o'clock we were ready for it, and with everything in good trim we pushed off. The current was strong from the start, and a small rapid just below camp gave additional speed, so that we were soon bearing down on the big one with wild velocity. The river dropped away abruptly, to rise again in a succession of fearful billows whose crests leaped and danced high in air as if rejoicing at the prospect of annihilating us. Just then the Major changed his mind as to running the place, for now standing on the boat's deck he could see it better than before from the region of our camp. He ordered us to pull hard on our left, intending to land at a spot that was propitious on the left or south bank, but no sooner had he given this command than he perceived that no landing above the fall was possible. He gave another order which put us straight in the middle again and down we flew upon the descent. The Major as usual had put on his life-preserver and I think Jones had on his, but Jack and I, as was our custom, placed ours inflated immediately behind our seats, not wishing to be hampered by them. The plunge was exceedingly sharp and deep, and then we found ourselves tossing like a chip in a frightful chaos of breakers which almost buried us, though the boats rose to them as well as any craft possibly could. I bailed with a camp kettle rapidly and Jack did the same, but the boat remained full to the gunwales as we were swept on. We had passed the worst of it when, just as the Dean mounted a giant wave at an angle perhaps of forty or fifty degrees, the crest broke in a deluge against the port bow with a loud slap. In an instant we were upside-down going over to starboard. I threw up my hand instinctively to grasp something, and luckily caught hold of a spare oar which was carried slung on the side, and by this means I pulled myself above water. My hat was pasted down over my eyes. Freeing myself from this I looked about. Bottom up the boat was clear of the rapid and sweeping on down with the swift, boiling current toward a dark bend. The Canonita was nowhere to be seen. No living thing was visible. The narrow black gorge rose in sombre majesty to the everlasting sky. What was a mere human life or two in the span of eternity? I was about preparing to climb up on the bottom of the boat when I perceived Jones clinging to the ring in the stern, and in another second the Major and Jack shot up alongside as if from a gun. The whole party had been kept together in a kind of whirlpool, and the Major and Jack had been pulled down head first till, as is the nature of these suctions on the Colorado, it suddenly changed to an upward force and threw them out into the air.

There was no time to lose, for we did not wish to go far in this condition; another rapid might be in waiting around the corner. Jack and I carefully got up on the bottom, leaving the Major at the bow and Jones at the stern, and leaning over we took hold of the starboard gunwale under water, and throwing ourselves back quickly together we brought the Dean up on her keel, though she came near rolling clear over the other way. She was even full of water, but the cabins supported her. Jack helped me in and then I balanced his effort so as not to capsize again. The bailing kettles were gone, but as our hats had strangely enough remained on our heads through it all we bailed with them as fast as possible for a few seconds till we lowered the water sufficiently to make it safe to get the others on board. The Major came aft along the gunwale and I helped him in, then Jack helped Jones. The oars, fortunately, had not come out of the locks, thanks to our excellent arrangement, and grasping them, without trying to haul in the bow line trailing a hundred feet in the water, we pulled hard for a slight eddy on the left where we perceived a footing on the rocks, and as soon as we were near enough I caught up the rope, made the leap, and threw the bight over a projection, where I held the boat while Jack and Jones bailed rapidly and set things in order so that we could go to the assistance of the Canonita. The Major's Jurgenssen chronometer had stopped at 8:26:30 from the wetting.

The Canonita, being more lightly laden than the Dean, and also not meeting the peculiar coincidence of mounting a wave at the instant it broke, came down with no more damage than the loss of three oars and the breaking of a rowlock. Probably if the Major had sat down on the deck instead of in the chair we might also have weathered the storm.[34] About a mile and a half below we made a landing at a favourable spot on the right, where the cargoes were spread out to dry and the boats were overhauled, while the Major and I climbed up the wall to where he desired to make a geological investigation. We joked him a good deal about his zeal in going to examine the geology at the bottom of the river, but as a matter of fact he came near departing by that road to another world.

We were now in an exceedingly difficult part of the granite gorge, for, at the prevailing stage of water, landings were either highly precarious or not possible at all, so we could not examine places before running, and could not always make a portage where we deemed it necessary. There were also all manner of whirlpools and bad places. Starting on about three o'clock we descended several rapids in about six miles, when we saw one ahead that looked particularly forbidding. The granite came down almost vertically to the water, projecting in huge buttresses that formed a succession of little bays, especially on the left, where we manoeuvred in and out, keeping close against the rocks, the current there being slack. The plan was for me to be ready, on turning the last point, to jump out on some rocks we had noticed from above not far from the beginning of the rapid. As we crept around the wall I stood up with the bight of the line in one hand, while Jack pulled in till we began to drift down stern foremost alongshore. At the proper moment I made my leap exactly calculated. Unluckily at the instant the capricious Colorado threw a "boil" up between the bow and the flat rock I was aiming at, turning the bow out several feet, and instead of landing where I intended I disappeared in deep water. I clung to the line and the acceleration of the boat's descent quickly pulled me back to the surface. She was gliding rapidly past more rocks and the Major jumped for them with the purpose of catching the rope, but they were so isolated and covered with rushing water that he had all he could do to take care of himself. Jones then tried the same thing, but with the same result. Jack stuck to his post. I went hand over hand to the bow as fast as I could, and reaching the gunwale I was on board in a second. One of my oars had somehow come loose, but Jack had caught it and now handed it to me. We took our places and surveyed the chances. Apparently we were in for running the rapid stern foremost and we prepared for it, but in the middle of the stream there was a rock of most gigantic proportions sloping up the river in such a way that the surges alternately rolled upon it and then slid back. Partly up the slope we were drawn by this power, and on the down rush the boat turned and headed diagonally just right for reaching the left bank. We saw our opportunity and, pulling with every muscle, lodged the Dean behind a huge boulder at the very beginning of the main rapid, where I made the line fast in the twinkle of an eye. Meanwhile the Major had hastily scrambled up to where he could see down the canyon, and he heard Jack's hearty shout of "All right!" Lowering the Dean a couple of rods farther to a sandbank at the mouth of a gulch we went into camp feeling that we had done enough river work for one day, and the Canonita's crew without accident lowered down to the same place before Andy had supper ready. My hat had come off in my deep plunge and beyond this I did not have one. Near by was a small clear spring that gave us another treat of palatable water, the Colorado now being muddier than ever, as it was still on the rise, coming up three feet more while we were here. The entire day's run was eight and one-eighth miles. The Major and Prof. succeeded in getting down three miles on foot to reconnoitre.



Continuing in the morning, September 4th, we lowered the boats past the remainder of the rapid and then shoved out into the terrific current once more. Water could hardly run faster than it now did, except in a fall or rapid. The canyon was narrow and for five miles we encountered the worst whirlpools we had anywhere seen. The descent was swift and continuous, but the river was broken only by the whirlpools and "boils" as we called them, the surface suddenly seeming to boil up and run over. These upshoots, as a rule, seemed to follow whirlpools. In the latter the water for a diameter of twenty or twenty-five feet would revolve around a centre with great rapidity, the surface inclining to the vortex, the top of which was perhaps eighteen or twenty inches lower than the general level. The vortex itself was perfectly formed, like a large funnel, and about six or eight inches in diameter, where it began to be a hole in the water, tapering thence down in four or five feet to a mere point. The same effect is often seen when the water is flowing out of a round wash-basin through a pipe at the bottom. These were the most perfect whirlpools I have ever seen, those above having been lacking in so distinct a vortex. There were many and we could often see them ahead, but try as we would to cleave through without a complete revolution or two of the boat we could not do it. The boats sank down into the hollow, enabling one to look over the side into the spinning opening, but the boats, being almost as long as the whirlpool's usual diameter, could not be pulled in and we were not alarmed. We found it rather interesting to see if we could get through without turning, but we never did. Any ordinary short object or one that could be tipped on end would surely go out of sight. So furious ran the river along this stretch that we found it impossible to stop, the boats being like bits of paper in a mill-race, swinging from one side to the other, and whirling round and round as we were swept along between the narrow walls till we ran the granite under about five miles from our last camp. Finally, after a run all told of fourteen miles with twenty-three rapids, we made Camp 103 with walls of friendly sandstone about us. Here again we discovered a small clear spring for drinking and cooking purposes. There was no rain this day and at night we put on our dry clothes with confidence and had a warm comfortable camp with a good sound sleep.