Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico Part 11

Marble Canyon was now beginning to narrow up with a steep, boulder-covered slope on either side, three or four hundred feet high; with a sheer wall of dark red limestone of equal height directly above that. There was also a plateau of red sandstone and distant walls topped with light-coloured rock, the same formations with which we were familiar in the Grand Canyon. The inner gorge had narrowed from a thousand feet or more down to four hundred feet, the slope at the river was growing steeper and gradually disappearing, and each mile of travel had added a hundred feet or more to the height of the walls.

Soon after resuming our journey that afternoon, the slope disappeared altogether, and the sheer walls came down close to the water. There were few places where one could climb out, had we desired to do so.

This hard limestone wall, which Major Powell had named the marble wall, had a disconcerting way of weathering very smooth and sheer, with a few ledges and fewer breaks.

We made a short run that day, going over a few rapids, stopping an hour to make some pictures where an immense rock had fallen from the cliff above into the middle of the river bed, leaving a forty-foot channel on one side, and scarcely any on the other. Below this we found a rapid so much like the Soap Creek Rapid in appearance that a portage seemed advisable. It was evening when we got the _Edith_ to the lower end of this rapid after almost losing her, as we lined her down, and she was wedged under a sloping rock that overhung the rapid.

We had two ropes, one at either end, attached to the boat in this case. Emery stood below the rock ready to pull her in when once past the rock. There was a sickening crackling of wood as the deck of the boat wedged under and down to the level of the water, and at Emery's call I released the boat, throwing the rope into the river, and hurried to help him. He was almost dragged into the water as the boat swung around fortunately striking against a sand-bank, instead of the many rocks that lined the sh.o.r.e. We were working with a stream different from the Green River, we found, and the _Defiance_ was taken from the water the next day and slowly worked, one end at a time, over the rocks, up to a level sand-bank, twenty-five or thirty feet above the river. Then we put rollers under her, and worked her down past the rapid. This work was little to our liking, for the boats, now pretty well water-soaked, weighed considerably more than their original five hundred pounds' weight.

A few successful plunges soon brought back our former confidence, and we continued to run all other rapids that presented themselves. This afternoon we pa.s.sed the first rapid we remembered having seen, where we could not land at its head before running it. A slightly higher stage of water, however, would have made many such rapids. Just below this point we found the body of a bighorn mountain-sheep floating in an eddy. It was impossible to tell just how he came to his death.

There was no sign of any great fall that we could see. He had a splendid pair of horns, which we would have liked to have had at home, but which we did not care to amputate and carry with us.

On this day's travel, we pa.s.sed a number of places where the marble--which had suggested this canyon's name to Major Powell--appeared. The exposed parts were checked, or seamed, and apparently would have little commercial value. We pa.s.sed a shallow cave or two this day, then found another cave or hole, running back about fifteen feet in the wall, so suitable for a camp that we could not refuse the temptation to stop, although we had made but a very short run this day. The high water had entered it, depositing successive layers of sand on the bottom, rising in steps, one above the other, making convenient shelves for maps and journals, pots and pans; while little shovelling was necessary to make the lower level of sand fit our sleeping bags. A number of small springs, bubbling from the walls near by, gave us the first clear water that we had found for some time, and a pile of driftwood caught in the rocks, directly in front of our cave, added to its desirability for a camp. Firewood was beginning to be the first consideration in choosing a camp, for in many places the high water had swept the sh.o.r.es clean, and spots which might otherwise have made splendid camps were rendered most undesirable for this reason.

So Camp Number 47 was made in this little cave, with a violent rapid directly beneath us, making a din that might be anything but rea.s.suring, were we not pretty well accustomed to it by this time. The next day, Sunday, November the 12th, was pa.s.sed in the same spot. The air turned decidedly cold this day, a hard wind swept up the river, the sky above was overcast, and we had little doubt that snow was falling on the Kaibab Plateau, which we could not see, but which we knew rose to the height of 5500 feet above us, but a few miles to the northwest of this camp. The sheer walls directly above the river dropped down considerably at this point, and a break or two permitted us to climb up as high as we cared to go on the red sandstone wall, which had lost its level character, and now rose in a steep slope over a thousand feet above us. These walls, with no growth but the tussocks of bunch-gra.s.s, the p.r.i.c.kly pear cactus, the mescal, and the yucca, were more dest.i.tute of growth than any we had seen, excepting the upper end of Desolation Canyon, even the upper walls lacking the growth of pinon pine and juniper which we usually a.s.sociated with them. We were now directly below the Painted Desert, which lay to the left of the canyon, and no doubt a similar desert was on the right-hand side, in the form of a narrow plateau; but we had no means of knowing just how wide or narrow this was, before it raised again to the forest-covered Buckskin Mountains and the Kaibab Plateau.

The rapid below our camp was just as bad as its roar, we found, on running it the next day. Most of the descent was confined to a violent drop at the very beginning, but there was a lot of complicated water in the big waves that followed. Emery was thrown forward in his boat, when he reached the bottom of the chute, striking his mouth, and bruising his hands, as he dropped his oars and caught the bulkhead. An extra oar was wrenched from the boat and disappeared in the white water, or foam that was as nearly white as muddy water ever gets. I nearly upset, and broke the pin of a rowlock, the released oar being jerked from my hand, sending me scrambling for an extra oar, when the boat swept into a swift whirlpool. Emery caught my oar as it whirled past him; the other was found a half-mile below in an eddy.

Some of the rapids in the centre of Marble Canyon were not more than 75 feet wide, with a corresponding violence of water. The whirlpools in the wider channels below these rapids were the strongest we had seen, and had a most annoying way of holding the boats just when we thought we had evaded them. Sometimes there would be a whirlpool on either side, with a sharply defined line of division in the centre, along which it was next to impossible to go without being caught on one side or the other. These whirlpools were seldom regarded as serious, for our boats were too wide and heavy to be readily overturned in them, although we saved ourselves more than one upset by throwing our weight to the opposite side. A small boat would have upset. On two occasions we were caught in small whirlpools, where a point of rock projected from the sh.o.r.e, turning upstream, splitting a swift current and making a very rapid and difficult whirl, where the boats were nearly smashed against the walls. Below all such places were the familiar boils, or fountains, or shoots, as they are variously termed. These are the lower end of the whirlpools, emerging often from the quiet water below a rapid with nearly as much violence as they disappeared in the rapids above. These would often rise when least expected, breaking under the boats, the swift upshoot of water giving them such a rap that we sometimes thought we had struck a rock.

If one happened to be in the centre of a boil when it broke, it would send them sailing down the stream many times faster than the regular current was travelling, rowing the boat having about as little effect on determining its course as if it was loaded on a flat-car. The other boat, at times just a few feet away, might be caught in the whirlpools that formed at the edge of the fountains, often opening up suddenly under one side of the boat, causing it to dip until the water poured over the edge, holding it to that one spot in spite of every effort to row away.

Then we would strike peaceful water again, a mile or perhaps, so quiet that a thin covering of clear water over the top of the silt-laden pool beneath, reflecting the tinted walls and the turquoise sky beneath its limpid surface. Gems of sunlight sparkled on its bosom and scintillated in the ripples left behind by the oars. When seated with our backs to the strongest light, and when glancing along the top of such a pool instead of into it, the mirror-like surface gave way to a peculiar purplish tone which seemed to cover the pool, so that one would forget it was roily water, and saw only the iridescent beauty of a mountain stream.

The wonderful marble walls--better known to the miners as the blue limestone walls--now rose from the water's edge to a height of eight or nine hundred feet, the surface of its light blue-gray rock being stained to a dark red, or a light red as the case might be, by the iron from the sandstone walls above. There were a thousand feet of these sandstone layers, red in all its varying hues, capped by the four-hundred foot cross-bedded sandstone wall, breaking sheer, ranging in tone from a soft buff to a golden yellow, with a bloom, or glow, as though illuminated from within. As we proceeded, another layer could be seen above this, the same limestone and with the same fossils--an examination of the rock-slides told us--as the topmost formation at the Grand Canyon. This was not unlike the cross-bedded sandstone in colour, but lacked its warmth and richness of tint.

A close, examination of the rocks revealed many colours, that figured but little in the grand colour scheme of the canyon as a whole--the detailed ornamentation of the magnificent rock structure. A fracture of wall would show the true colour of the rock, beneath the stain; lime crystals studded its surface, like gems glinting in the sunlight; beautifully tinted jasper, resembling the petrified wood found in another part of Arizona, was embedded in the marble wall,--usually at the point of contact with another formation,--polished by the sands of the turbid river.

All this told us that we were coming into our own. Four of the seven notable divisions of rock strata found in the Grand Canyon were now represented in Marble Canyon, and soon the green shale, which underlies the blue limestone, began to crop out by the river as the walls grew higher and the stream cut deeper.

One turn of the canyon revealed a break where Stanton hid his provisions in a cave--after a second fatality in which two more of this ill-fated expedition lost their lives--and climbed out on top.

Afterwards he re-outfitted with heavier boats and tackled the stream again.

Just below this break the scene changed as we made a sharp turn to the left. Vasey's Paradise--named by Major Powell after Dr. Geo. W. Vasey, botanist of the United States Department of Agriculture--was disclosed to view. Beautiful streams gushed from rounded holes, fifty yards above the river. The rock walls reminded one of an ivy-covered castle of old England, guarded by a moat uncrossed by any drawbridge. It was trellised with vines, maidenhair ferns, and water-moss making a vivid green background for the golden yellow and burnished copper leaves which still clung to some small cottonwood trees--the only trees we had seen in Marble Canyon.

In our haste to push on, we left the bra.s.s motion-picture tripod head on an island, from which we pictured this lovely spot. A rapid was put behind us before we noticed our loss, and there was no going back then.

Another turn revealed a Gothic arch, or grotto, carved at the bend of the wall by the high water, with an overhang of more than a hundred feet, and a height nearly as great, for the flood waters ran above the hundred-foot stage in this narrow walled section. Then came a gloomy, prison-like formation, with a "Bridge of Sighs" two hundred feet above a gulch, connecting the dungeon to the perpendicular wall beyond; and with a hundred cave-like openings in its sheer sides like small windows, admitting a little daylight into its dark interior. The sullen boom of a rapid around the turn sounded like the march of an army coming up the gorge, so we climbed back into our boats after a vain attempt to climb up to some of the caves, and advanced to meet our foe. This rapid--the tenth for the day--while it was clear of rocks, had an abrupt drop, with powerful waves which did all sorts of things to us and to our boats; breaking a rowlock and the four pieces of line which held it, and flooding us both with a ton of water. We went into camp a short distance below this, in a narrow box canyon running back a hundred yards from the river, a gloomy, cathedral-like interior with sheer walls rising several hundred feet on three sides of us, and with the top of the south wall 2500 feet above us in plain sight of our camp, the one camp in Marble Canyon where our sleep was undisturbed by the roar of a rapid. But instead of the roar of a rapid, a howling wind swept down from the Painted Desert above, piling the mingled desert sands and river sands about our beds, scattering our camp material over the bottom of the narrow gorge.

Soon after this camp--the fourth and the last in Marble Canyon--was left behind us, the walls began to widen out, especially on the north-northwest, and by noon we had pa.s.sed from the narrow, direct canyon, into one with slopes and plateaus breaking the sheer walls, the wall on the left or southeast side being much the lower of the two, and more nearly perpendicular, rising to a height of 3200 feet, while the northwest side lifted up to the Kaibab Plateau, one point--miles back from the river--rising 6000 feet above us.

We halted at noon beside the Nancoweep Valley. A wide tributary heading many miles back in the plateau the right, with a ramified series of canyons running into it, and with great expanses of sage-covered flats between. Deer tracks were found on these flats, deer which came down from the forest of the Buckskin Mountains. This was the point selected by Major Powell for the construction of a trail when he returned from his voyage of exploration to study the geology of this section. The trail, although neglected for many years, is still used by prospectors from Kanab, Utah, who make a yearly trip into the canyons to do some work on a mineral ledge a few miles below here.

What a glorious, exhilarating run we had that day! From here to the end of Marble Canyon the rapids were almost continuous, with few violent drops and seldom broken by the usual quiet pools. It was the finest kind of water for fast travelling, and we made the most of it.

The only previous run we had made that could in any way compare with it was in Whirlpool and Split Mountain canyons, when the high water was on. As we travelled, occasional glimpses were had of familiar places on Greenland Point--that thirty-mile peninsula of the Kaibab Plateau extending between Marble Canyon and the Grand Canyon--where we had gone deer-hunting, or on photographic expeditions with Rust.

Another valley from the right was pa.s.sed, then a peak rose before us close to the river, with its flat top rising to a height equal to the south wall. This was Chuar b.u.t.te. Once more we were in a narrow canyon, narrowing by this peak, but a canyon just the same. Soon we were below a wall we once had photographed from the mouth of the Little Colorado; then the stream itself came into view and we were soon anch.o.r.ed beside it. This was the beginning of the Grand Canyon.

CHAPTER XIX

SIGNALLING OUR CANYON HOME

How long we had waited for this view! How many memories it recalled--and how different it seemed to our previous visit there!

Then, the high water was on, and the turquoise-tinted mineral water of the Colorado Chiquito was backed up by the turbid flood waters of the Rio Colorado, forty feet or more above the present level. Now it was a rapid stream, throwing itself with wild abandon over the rocks and into the Colorado. There was the same deserted stone hut, built by a French prospector, many years before, and a plough that he had packed in over a thirty-mile trail--the most difficult one in all this rugged region! There was the little gra.s.s-plot where we pastured the burro, while we made a fifteen-mile walk up the bed of this narrow canyon!

What a hard, hot journey it had been! A year and a half ago we sat on that rock, and talked of the day when we should come through here in boats! Even then we talked of building a raft, and of loading the burro on it for a spin on the flood waters. Lucky for us and for the burro that we didn't! We understand the temper of these waters now.

Cape Desolation, a point of the Painted Desert on the west side of the Little Colorado, was almost directly above us, 3200 feet high. Chuar b.u.t.te, equally as high and with walls just as nearly perpendicular, extended on into the Grand Canyon on the right side, making the narrowest canyon of this depth that we had seen. The Navajo reservation terminated at the Little Colorado, although nothing but the maps indicated that we had pa.s.sed from the land of the Red man to that of the White. Both were equally desolate, and equally wonderful.

With the entrance of the new stream the canyon changes its southwest trend and turns directly west, and continues to hold to this general direction until the northwest corner of Arizona is reached.

But we must be on again! Soon familiar segregated peaks in the Grand Canyon began to appear. There was Wotan's Throne on the right, and the "Copper Mine Mesa" on the left. Three or four miles below the junction a four-hundred foot perpendicular wall rose above us. The burro, on our previous visit, was almost shoved off that cliff when the pack caught on a rock, and was only saved by strenuous pulling on the neck-rope and pack harness. Soon we pa.s.sed some tunnels on both sides of the river where the Mormon miners had tapped a copper ledge. At 4.15 P.M. we were at the end of the Tanner Trail, the outlet of the Little Colorado Trail to the rim above. It had taken seven hours of toil to cover the same ground we now sped over in an hour and a quarter. Major Powell, in 1872, found here the remnant of a very small hut built of mesquite logs, but whether the remains of an Indian's or white man's shelter cannot be stated. The trail, without doubt was used by the Indians before the white man invaded this region.

The canyon had changed again from one which was very narrow to one much more complex, greater, and grander. The walls on top were many miles apart; Comanche Point, to our left, was over 4000 feet above us; Desert View, Moran Point, and other points on the south rim were even higher. On the right we could see an arch near Cape Final on Greenland Point, over 5000 feet up, that we had photographed, from the top, a few years before. PaG.o.da-shaped temples--the formation so typical of the Grand Canyon--cl.u.s.tered on all sides. The upper walls were similar in tint to those in Marble Canyon, but here at the river was a new formation; the algonkian, composed of thousands of brilliantly coloured bands of rock, standing at an angle--the one irregularity to the uniform layers of rock--a remnant of thousands of feet of rock which once covered this region, then was planed away before the other deposits were placed. All about us, close to the river, was a deep, soft sand formed by the disintegration of the rocks above, as brilliantly coloured as the rocks from which they came. What had been a very narrow stream above here spread out over a thousand feet wide, ran with a good current, and seemed to be anything but a shallow stream at that.

We had travelled far that day but still sped on,--with a few rapids which did not r.e.t.a.r.d, but rather helped us on our way, and with a good current between these rapids,--only stopping to camp when a three-hundred foot wall rose sheer from the river's edge, bringing to an end our basin-like river bottom, where one could walk out on either side. It was not necessary to hunt for driftwood this evening, for a thicket of mesquite--the best of all wood for a camp-fire--grew out of the sand-dunes, and some half-covered dead logs were unearthed from the drifted sand, and soon reduced to glowing coals.

Meanwhile, we were enjoying one of those remarkable Arizona desert sunsets. Ominous clouds had been gathering in the afternoon, rising from the southwest, drifting across the canyon, and piling up against the north wall. A few fleecy clouds in the west partially obscured the sun until it neared the horizon, then a shaft of sunlight broke through once more, telegraphing its approach long before it reached us, the rays being visibly hurled through s.p.a.ce like a javelin, or a lightning bolt, striking peak after peak so that one almost imagined they would hear the thunder roll. A yellow flame covered the western sky, to be succeeded in a few minutes by a crimson glow. The sharply defined colours of the different layers of rock had merged and softened, as the sun dropped from sight; purple shadows crept into the cavernous depths, while shafts of gold shot to the very tiptop of the peaks, or threw their shadows like silhouettes on the wall beyond.

Then the scene s.h.i.+fted again, and it was all blood-red, reflecting from the sky and staining the rocks below, so that distant wall and sky merged, with little to show where the one ended and the other began. That beautiful haze, which tints, but does not obscure, enshrouded the temples and spires, changing from heliotrope to lavender, from lavender to deepest purple; there was a departing flare of flame like the collapse of a burning building; a few clouds in the zenith, torn by the winds so that they resembled the craters of the moon, were tinted for an instant around the crater's rims; the clouds faded to a dove-like gray; they darkened; the gray disappeared; the purple crept from the canyon into the arched dome overhead; the day was ended, twilight pa.s.sed, and darkness settled over all.

We sat silently by the fire for a few minutes, then rose and resumed our evening's work. This camp was at a point that could be seen from the Grand View hotel, fourteen miles from our home. We talked of building a signal fire on the promontory above the camp, knowing that the news would be telephoned to home if the fire was seen. But we gave up the plan. Although less than twenty miles from Bright Angel Trail, we were not safely through by any means. Two boats had been wrecked or lost in different rapids less than six miles from this camp. The forty-foot fall in the Hance or Red Canyon Rapid was three miles below us; the Sockdologer, the Grapevine, and other rapids nearly as large followed those; we might be no more fortunate than the others, and a delay after once giving a signal would cause more anxiety than no signal at all we thought, and the fire was not built.

Particular attention was paid to the loading of the boats the next morning. The moving-picture film was tucked in the toes of our sleeping bags, and the protecting bags were carefully laced. We were not going to take any chances in this next plunge--the much-talked-of entrance to the granite gorge. A half-hour's run and a dash through one violent rapid landed us at the end of the Hance Trail--unused for tourist travel for several years--with a few torn and tattered tents back in the side canyon down which the trail wound its way. We half hoped that we would find some of the prospectors who make this section their winter home either at the Tanner or the Hance Trail, but there was no sign of recent visitors at either place, unless it was the numerous burro tracks in the sand. These tracks were doubtless made by some of the many wild burros that roam all the lower plateaus in the upper end of the Grand Canyon.

After a careful inspection of the Hance Rapid we were glad the signal fire was not built. It was a nasty rapid. While reading over our notes one evening we were amused to find that we had catalogued different rapids with an equal amount of fall as "good," "bad," or "nasty," the difference depending nearly altogether on the rocks in the rapids. The "good rapids" were nothing but a descent of "big water," with great waves,--for which we cared little, but rather enjoyed if it was not too cold,--and with no danger from rocks; the "bad rapids" contained rocks, and twisting channels, but with half a chance of getting through. A nasty rapid was filled with rocks, many of them so concealed in the foam that it was often next to impossible to tell if rocks were there or not, and in which there was little chance of running through without smas.h.i.+ng a boat. The Hance Rapid was such a one.

Such a complication of twisted channels and protruding rocks we had not seen unless it was at h.e.l.l's Half Mile. It meant a portage--nothing less--the second since leaving that other rapid in Lodore. So we went to work, carrying our duffle across deep, soft sand-dunes, down to the middle of the rapid, where quieted for a hundred yards before it made the final plunge. The gathering dusk of evening found all material and one boat at this spot, with the other one at the head of the rapid, to be portaged the next day. But we did not portage this boat. A good night's rest, and the safeguard of a boat at the bottom of the plunge made it look much less dangerous, and five minutes after breakfast was finished, this boat was beside its mate, and we had a reel of film which we hoped would show just how we successfully ran this difficult rapid. While going over the second section, on the opposite side of the river, Emery was thrown out of his boat for an instant when the _Edith_ touched a rock in a twenty-five mile an hour current, similar to my first upset in the Soap Creek Rapid--the old story: out again; in again; on again--landing in safety at the end of the rapid not one whit the worse for the spill.

This rapid marks the place where the granite, or igneous rock, intrudes, rising at a sharp angle, sloping upward down the stream, reaching the height of 1300 feet about one mile below. It marks the end of the large deposit of algonkian. The granite, when it attains its highest point, is covered with a 200-foot layer of sedimentary rock called the tonto sandstone. The top of this formation is exposed by a plateau from a quarter of a mile to three miles in width, on either side of the granite gorge; the same walls which were found in Marble Canyon rise above this. The temples which are scattered through the canyon--equal in height, in many cases, to the walls--have their foundation on this plateau. These peaks contain the same stratified rock with a uniform thickness whether in peak or wall, with little displacement and little sign of violent uplift, nearly all this canyon being the work of erosion: 5000 feet from the rim to the river; the edges of six great layers of sedimentary rock laid bare and with a narrow 1300-foot gorge through the igneous rock below--the Grand Canyon of Arizona.

The granite gorge seemed to us to be the one place of all others that we had seen on this trip that would cause one to hesitate a long time before entering, if nothing definite was known of its nature. Another person might have felt the same way of the canyons we had pa.s.sed, Lodore or Marble Canyon, for instance. A great deal depends on the nerves and digestion, no doubt; and the same person would look at it in a different light at different times, as we found from our own experiences. Our digestions were in excellent condition just at that time, and we were nerved up by the thought that we were going "to the plate for a home run" if possible, yet the granite gorge had a decidedly sinister look. The walls, while not sheer, were nearly so; they might be climbed in many places to the top of the granite; but the tonto sandstone wall nearly always overhangs this, breaks sheer, and seldom affords an outlet to the plateaus above, except where lateral canyons cut through. The rocks are very dark, with dikes of quartz, and with twisting seams of red and black granite, the great body of rock being made up of decomposed micaceous schists and gneiss, a treacherous material to climb. The entrance to this gorge is made on a quiet pool with no sh.o.r.e on either side after once well in.

But several parties had been through since Major Powell made his initial trip, so we did not hesitate, but pushed on with the current.

Now we could truly say that we were going home. The Hance Rapid was behind us; Bright Angel Creek was about twelve miles away. Soon we were in the deepest part of the gorge. Great dikes and uplifts of jagged rocks towered above us; and up, up, up, lifted the other walls above that. Bissell Point, on the very top, could plainly be seen from our quiet pool.

Then came a series of rapids quite different from the Hance Rapid, and many others found above. Those others were usually caused in part by the detritus or deposit from side canyons, which dammed the stream, and what might be a swift stream, with a continuous drop, was transformed to a succession of mill-ponds and cataracts, or rapids. In nearly every case, in low water such as we were travelling on, the deposit made a sh.o.r.e on which we could land and inspect the rapid from below. The swift water invariably makes a narrow channel if it has no obstruction in its way; it is the quiet stream that makes a wide channel. But the rapids we found this day were nearly all different.

They were seldom caused by great deposits of rock, but appeared to be formed by a dike or ledge of hard rock rising from the softer rock--the same intrusion being sometimes found on both sides of the stream--forming a dam the full width of the channel, over which the water made a swift descent, with a long line of interference waves below. But for a cold wind which swept up the stream, this style of rapid was more to our fancy. These were "good rapids," the "best" we had seen. There were few rocks to avoid. Some of the rapids were violent, but careful handling took us past every danger. There was little chance to make a portage at several of these places had we desired to do so. We gave them but a glance from the decks of the boats, then dropped into them. In one instance I saw the _Edith_ literally shoot through a wave bow first, both ends of the boat being visible, while her captain was buried in the foam.

We had learned to discriminate by its noise, long before we could see a rapid, whether it was filled with rocks, or was merely a descent of big water. The latter, often just as impressive as the former, had a sullen, steady boom; the rocky rapids had the same sound, punctuated by another sound, like the crack of regiments of musketry. All were greatly magnified in sound by the narrow, echoing walls. We became so accustomed to this noise that we almost forgot it was there, and it was only after the long, quiet stretches that the noise was noticed In a few instances only we noticed the shattering vibration of air that is a.s.sociated with waterfalls. Still there is noise enough in many rapids so that their boom can be heard several miles away from the top of the canyons.

Guided by these sounds, and aided by our method of holding the boat in mid-stream, while making a reconnaissance, we were quite well aware of what we were likely to find before we anch.o.r.ed above a rapid. We were never fearful of being drawn into a cataract without having a chance to land somewhere. The water is strangely quiet, to a comparatively close distance above nearly all rapids. We usually tied up anywhere from fifty feet to a hundred yards above a drop, before inspecting it.

If it was a "big-water" rapid, we usually looked it over standing on the seat in the boats, then continued. By signals with the hands, the one first over would guide the other, if any hidden rocks or dangerous channel threatened. While we did not think much about it, we usually noted the places where one might climb out on the plateau. Little could be told about the upper walls from the river.

A chilling wind swept up the river, penetrating our soaked garments.

But we paid little attention to this, only pulling the harder, not only to keep the circulation going, but every pull of the oars put us that much nearer home. We never paused in our rowing until we anch.o.r.ed at 4.30 P.M. under Rust's tramway, close to the mouth of Bright Angel Creek. According to the United States Geological Survey there is a descent of 178 feet from the head of the Hance Rapid to the end of Bright Angel Trail one mile below the creek. We would have a very moderate descent in that mile. The run from the Hance Rapid had been made in less than five hours.

Our boats were tied in the shadow of the cage hanging from a cable sixty feet above. It stretched across a quiet pool, 450 feet across--for the river is dammed by debris from the creek below, and fills the channel from wall to wall. Hurriedly we made our way up to Rust's camp,--closed for the winter; for heavy snows would cover the North Rim in a few days or a few weeks at the farthest, filling the trails with heavy drifts and driving the cougar into the canyon where dogs and horses cannot follow. But the latch-string was out for us, we knew, had we cared to use the tents. Our signal fire was built a mile above the camp, at a spot that was plainly visible on a clear day from our home on the other side, six miles away as the crow flies. We had often looked at this spot, with a telescope, from the veranda of our studio, watching the hunting and sight-seeing parties ride up the bed of the stream. We rather feared the drifting clouds and mists would hide the fire from view, but now and then a rift appeared, and we knew if they were looking they could see its light. Camp No. 51 was made close to Bright Angel Creek, that evening, Thursday, October the 16th, two months and eight days from the time we had embarked on our journey.

Three or four hours were spent in packing our material the next morning, so it could be stored in a miners' tunnel, near the end of the trail. We would pack little of this out, as we intended to resume our river work in a week or ten days. A five-minute run took us over the rapid below Bright Angel Creek, and down to a bend in the river, just above the Cameron or Bright Angel Trail. Two men--guides from the hotel--called to us as our boats swept into view. We made a quick dash over the vicious little drop below the bend,--easy for our boats, but dangerous enough for lighter craft on account of a difficult whirlpool,--and were soon on sh.o.r.e greeting old friends. Up on the plateau, 1300 feet above, a trail party of tourists and guides called down their welcome. The stores were put in the miners' tunnel as we had planned, and the boats were taken above the high-water mark; placed in dry dock one might say.