_Through the Grand Canyon
from Wyoming to Mexico_
[Illustration]
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
[Illustration: _Copyright by Kolb Bros._
THE GRAND CANYON AT THE MOUTH OF HA VA SU CREEK.]
_Through the Grand Canyon
from Wyoming to Mexico_
_By
E. L. Kolb_
_With a Foreword by Owen Wister_
_New Edition
With Additional Illustrations
(72 Plates)
From Photographs by the
Author and His Brother_
_New York
The Macmillan Company
1915
All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1914,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1914. Reprinted
December, 1914. New edition published June, 1915.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
Dedication
TO THE MANY FRIENDS
WHO “PULLED” FOR US, IF NOT WITH US
DURING THE ONE HUNDRED ONE DAYS OF OUR RIVER TRIP
THIS VOLUME
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
FOREWORD
It is a dogged courage of which the author of this book is the serene
possessor--shared equally by his daring brother; and evidence of this
bravery is made plain throughout the following pages. Every youth who
has in him a spark of adventure will kindle with desire to battle his
way also from Green River to the foot of Bright Angel Trail; while
every man whose bones have been stiffened and his breath made short
by the years, will remember wistfully such wild tastes of risk and
conquest that he, too, rejoiced in when he was young.
Whether it deal with the climbing of dangerous peaks, or the descent
(as here) of some fourteen hundred miles of water both mysterious and
ferocious, the well-told tale of a perilous journey, planned with
head and carried through with dauntless persistence, always holds
the attention of its readers and gives them many a thrill. This tale
is very well told. Though it is the third of its kind, it differs
from its predecessors more than enough to hold its own: no previous
explorers have attempted to take moving pictures of the Colorado
River with themselves weltering in its foam. More than this: while
the human race lasts it will be true, that any man who is lucky
enough to fix upon a hard goal and win it, and can in direct and
simple words tell us how he won it, will write a good book.
Perhaps this planet does somewhere else contain a thing like the
Colorado River--but that is no matter; we at any rate in our
continent possess one of nature’s very vastest works. After The River
and its tributaries have done with all sight of the upper world, have
left behind the bordering plains and streamed through the various
gashes which their floods have sliced in the mountains that once
stopped their way, then the culminating wonder begins. The River
has been flowing through the loneliest part which remains to us of
that large space once denominated “The Great American Desert” by the
vague maps in our old geographies. It has passed through regions of
emptiness still as wild as they were before Columbus came; where not
only no man lives now nor any mark is found of those forgotten men of
the cliffs, but the very surface of the earth itself looks monstrous
and extinct. Upon one such region in particular the author of these
pages dwells, when he climbs up out of the gulf in whose bottom he
has left his boat by the River, to look out upon a world of round
gray humps and hollows which seem as if it were made of the backs of
huge elephants. Through such a country as this, scarcely belonging
to our era any more than the mammoth or the pterodactyl, scarcely
belonging to time at all, does the Colorado approach and enter its
culminating marvel. Then, for 283 miles it inhabits a nether world of
its own. The few that have ventured through these places and lived
are a handful to those who went in and were never seen again. The
white bones of some have been found on the shores; but most were
drowned; and in this water no bodies ever rise, because the thick
sand that its torrent churns along clogs and sinks them.
This place exerts a magnetic spell. The sky is there above it, but
not of it. Its being is apart; its climate; its light; its own. The
beams of the sun come into it like visitors. Its own winds blow
through it, not those of outside, where we live. The River streams
down its mysterious reaches, hurrying ceaselessly; sometimes a smooth
sliding lap, sometimes a falling, broken wilderness of billows and
whirlpools. Above stand its walls, rising through space upon space
of silence. They glow, they gloom, they shine. Bend after bend they
reveal themselves, endlessly new in endlessly changing veils of
colour. A swimming and jewelled blue predominates, as of sapphires
being melted and spun into skeins of shifting cobweb. Bend after
bend this trance of beauty and awe goes on, terrible as the Day of
Judgment, sublime as the Psalms of David. Five thousand feet below
the opens and barrens of Arizona, this canyon seems like an avenue
conducting to the secret of the universe and the presence of the gods.
Is much wonder to be felt that its beckoning enchantment should
have drawn two young men to dwell beside it for many years; to give
themselves wholly to it; to descend and ascend among its buttressed
pinnacles; to discover caves and waterfalls hidden in its labyrinths;
to climb, to creep, to hang in mid-air, in order to learn more and
more of it, and at last to gratify wholly their passion in the great
adventure of this journey through it from end to end? No siren song
could have lured travellers more than the siren silence of the Grand
Canyon: but these young men did not leave their bones to whiten
upon its shores. The courage that brought them out whole is plain
throughout this narrative, in spite of its modesty.
OWEN WISTER.
PREFACE
This is a simple narrative of our recent photographic trip down
the Green and Colorado rivers in rowboats--our observations and
impressions. It is not intended to replace in any way the books
published by others covering a similar journey. Major J. W. Powell’s
report of the original exploration, for instance, is a classic,
literary and geological; and searchers after excellence may well be
recommended to his admirable work.
Neither is this chronicle intended as a handbook of the territory
traversed--such as Mr. F. S. Dellenbaugh’s two volumes: “The Romance
of the Grand Canyon,” and “A Canyon Voyage.” We could hardly hope to
add anything of value to his wealth of detail. In fact, much of the
data given here--such as distances, elevations, and records of other
expeditions--is borrowed from the latter volume. And I take this
opportunity of expressing our appreciation to Mr. Dellenbaugh for his
most excellent and entertaining books.
We are indebted to Mr. Julius F. Stone, of Columbus, Ohio, for much
valuable information and assistance. Mr. Stone organized a party and
made the complete trip down the Green and Colorado rivers in the fall
and winter of 1909, arriving at Needles, California, on November 27,
1909. He freely gave us the benefit of his experience and presented
us with the complete plans of the boats he used.
One member of this party was Nathan Galloway, of Richfield, Utah. To
him we owe much of the success of our journey. Mr. Galloway hunts
and traps through the wilds of Utah, Colorado, and Arizona, and has
a fame for skill and nerve throughout this entire region. He makes a
yearly trip through the upper canyons, usually in a boat of his own
construction; and in addition has the record of being the only person
who has made two complete trips through the entire series of canyons,
clear to Needles. He it is who has worked out the type of boats we
used, and their management in the dangerous waters of the Colorado.
We have tried to make this narrative not only simple, as we say, but
truthful. However, no two people can see things in exactly the same
light. To some, nothing looks big; to others, every little danger is
unconsciously magnified out of all proportion. For instance, we can
recall rapids which appeared rather insignificant at first, but which
seemed decidedly otherwise after we had been overturned in them and
had felt their power--especially at the moment when we were sure we
had swallowed a large part of the water that composed them.
The reader will kindly excuse the use of the first person, both
singular and plural. It is our own story, after all, and there seems
to be no other way than to tell it as you find it here.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. PREPARATIONS AT GREEN RIVER CITY, WYOMING 1
II. INTERESTING SIGHTS OF SOUTHERN WYOMING 12
III. THE GATEWAY OF ALL THE CANYONS 22
IV. SUSPICIOUS HOSTS 36
V. THE BATTLE WITH LODORE 50
VI. HELL’S HALF MILE 64
VII. JIMMY GOES OVER THE MOUNTAIN 71
VIII. AN INLAND EXCURSION 83
IX. CANYON OF DESOLATION 93
X. HOSPITABLE RANCHMEN 102
XI. WONDERS OF EROSION 111
XII. COULD WE SUCCEED? 121
XIII. A COMPANION VOYAGER 129
XIV. A PATIENT AMID THE CATARACTS 142
XV. PLACER GOLD 156
XVI. A WARNING 169
XVII. A NIGHT OF THRILLS 178
XVIII. MARBLE HALLS AND MARBLE WALLS 190
XIX. SIGNALLING OUR CANYON HOME 203
XX. ONE MONTH LATER 219
XXI. WHAT CHRISTMAS EVE BROUGHT 235
XXII. SHORT OF PROVISIONS IN A SUNLESS GORGE 249
XXIII. THE LAST PORTAGE AND THE LAST RAPIDS 267
XXIV. ON THE CREST OF A FLOOD 280
XXV. FOUR DAYS TO YUMA 290
XXVI. ACROSS THE MEXICO BORDER 303
XXVII. THE GULF OF CALIFORNIA 321
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Grand Canyon near the mouth of Ha Va Su Creek
_Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
After a difficult picture. E. C. Kolb on rope 2
In the Grand Canyon near the Little Colorado 6
The start at Green River, Wyoming 10
Fire Hole Chimneys 10
A typical butte formation 14
Boats and crew. Photo taken in the Grand Canyon 18
Skeleton found in the Grand Canyon 22
Inside of the first canyons 26
Tilted rocks at Kingfisher Canyon 26
“Immense rocks had fallen from the cliff” 36
Ashley Falls, looking down-stream 40
The rocks were dark red; occasional pines grew on the
ledges, making a charming combination of colour 44
“We stopped at one hay ranch close to the Utah-Colorado
line” 48
Remarkable entrance to Lodore Canyon 52
“The river cut a channel under the walls” at Lower
Disaster Falls 56
“Everything was wet” 56
A Colorado River salmon 60
Lodore Canyon as seen from Brown’s Park. 60
“The Canyon was gloomy and darkened with shreds of
clouds” 64
“It took nine loads to empty one boat” 68
“An upright log was found wedged between the boulders” 68
Echo Cliffs. “This was the end of Lodore” 72
End of Echo Cliffs. The mouth of the Yampa River is
on the right 72
Marvels of erosion 76
“Here was one end of the rainbow of rock that began
on the other side of the mountains” 80
Pat Lynch: the canyon hermit 84
Each bed was placed in a rubber and a canvas sack 90
“Now for a fish story” 100
The centre of three symmetrical formations in the Double
Bow Knot 114
The Buttes of the Cross 118
“The Land of Standing Rocks was like a maze” 122
Rocks overhanging the Colorado’s Gorge 122
Thirteen hundred feet above the Green River 124
The junction of the Green and the Grand Rivers 128
Looking west into Cataract Canyon 132
Charles Smith and his boat 132
A narrow channel at Rapid No. 22 136
Developing tests 136
Rapid No. 22 in Cataract Canyon 140
The _Edith_ in a cataract 144
A seventy-five-foot drop in three-fourths of a mile 144
Camp in the heart of Cataract Canyon 148
Lower Cataract Canyon. Boats tandem 152
Beginning of a natural bridge. Glen Canyon 152
Pictographs in Glen Canyon 158
Cliff ruins near San Juan River 162
Rainbow Natural Bridge, looking south 162
Rainbow Natural Bridge, looking north 166
Glen Canyon near Navajo Mountain 170
Upper Marble Canyon 170
Placer dredge at Lee’s Ferry 174
Badger Creek Rapid 180
Bands of marble in Marble Canyon 180
A peaceful camp in Marble Canyon 184
The Soap Creek Rapid; a little above lowest stage. Photo
published by permission of Julius F. Stone 188
“It was too good a camp to miss” 192
Arch in Marble Canyon 192
Walls of Marble Canyon 196
Approaching the Grand Canyon 200
End of Marble Canyon, from the mouth of the Little
Colorado 204
Cataracts of the Little Colorado River 204
End of Hance Trail. Small white line is an intrusion of
quartz in the algonkian 208
Below the Sockdologer 210
The Rust Tramway. Span four hundred and fifty feet 214
Bright Angel Creek and Canyon 218
Leaving home, Dec. 19, 1911 222
A composite picture of Marble Canyon walls and a Grand
Canyon rapid 222
The _Edith_ (on left of central rock) in
Granite Falls 226
Rough water in Hermit Creek Rapid 230
Type of rapid in the granite near Bass Trail 234
The inner plateau, thirteen hundred feet above the river 238
Bert Lauzon, above Separation Rapid 238
The break in the _Edith_ 242
Merry Christmas. The repair was made with bilge boards,
canvas, paint, and tin 242
Pulling clear of a rock 246
A shower bath 246
Grand Canyon at the mouth of Ha Va Su Canyon. Medium
high water. Frontispiece shows same place in
low water 250
“Morning revealed a little snow,” on the top 252
New Year’s Eve was spent in this section between the
highest sheer walls in the lower gorge 252
Lava Falls. Lava on left, hot springs on right 254
Swift water in Tapeets Creek Rapid 260
Lauzon, equipped with a life preserver on a rope, on
guard below a rapid 260
In the last granite gorge 260
Capt. Burro: a Ha Va Supai 266
The Last Portage. The rocks were ice-filmed. Note
potholes 270
Mooney Falls: Ha Va Su Canyon 274
Watching for the signal fire. Mrs. Emery and Edith Kolb 278
The granite gorge near Bright Angel Trail 282
The Grand Canyon from the head of Bright Angel Trail 286
The Cork Screw: lower end of Bright Angel Trail 290
Zoroaster Temple from the end of Bright Angel Trail 298
Winter in the Grand Canyon from the Rim 308
Winter in the Grand Canyon at the River 308
A vaquero in the making 318
Cliff swallows’ nests. Found from Wyoming to Mexico 318
Steam vents beside Volcanic Lake 326
Cocopah Mountain, Mexico 326
Ten miles from the Gulf of California. Coming up on
a twenty-foot tide 332
Sunset on the lower Colorado River 332
_Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico_
[Illustration: Map]
THROUGH THE GRAND CANYON FROM WYOMING TO MEXICO
CHAPTER I
PREPARATIONS AT GREEN RIVER CITY, WYOMING
Early in September of 1911 my brother Emery and I landed in Green
River City, Wyoming, ready for the launching of our boats on our
long-planned trip down the Green and Colorado rivers.
For ten years previous to this time we had lived at the Grand
Canyon of Arizona, following the work of scenic photography. In a
general way we had covered much of the country adjacent to our home,
following our pack animals over ancient and little-used trails,
climbing the walls of tributary canyons, dropping over the ledges
with ropes when necessary, always in search of the interesting and
unusual.
After ten years of such work many of our plans in connection with a
pictorial exploration of the Grand Canyon were crowned with success.
Yet all the while our real ambition remained unsatisfied.
We wanted to make the “Big Trip”--as we called it; in other words,
we wanted a pictorial record of the entire series of canyons on the
Green and Colorado rivers.
The time had come at last, after years of hoping, after long months
of active preparation.
We stood at the freight window of the station at Green River City
asking for news of our boats. They had arrived and could be seen in
their crates shoved away in a corner. It was too late to do anything
with them that day; so we let them remain where they were, and went
out to look over the town.
Green River City proved to be a busy little place noisy with switch
engines, crowded with cattle-men and cowboys, and with hunting
parties outfitting for the Jackson Hole country. A thoroughly Western
town of the better sort, with all the picturesqueness of people and
surroundings that the name implies.
It was busier than usual, even, that evening; for a noisy but
good-natured crowd had gathered around the telegraph office, eager
for news of a wrestling match then taking place in an Eastern city.
As we came up they broke into a cheer at the news that the American
wrestler had defeated his foreign opponent. There was a discussion
as to what constituted the “toe-hold,” three boys ran an impromptu
foot-race, there was some talk on the poor condition of the range,
and the party began to break up.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Kolb Bros._
AFTER A DIFFICULT PICTURE. E. C. KOLB ON THE ROPE.]
The little excitement over, we returned to the hotel; feeling, in
spite of our enthusiasm, somewhat lonesome and very much out of
place. Our sleep that night was fitful and broken by dreams wherein
the places we had known were strangely interwoven with these new
scenes and events. Through it all we seemed to hear the roar of the
Rio Colorado.
We looked out of the window the next morning, on a landscape that
was novel, yet somehow familiar. The river, a quarter of a mile
away, very clear and unruffled under its groves of cottonwood, wound
through low barren hills, as unlike as could be to the cliffs and
chasms we knew so well. But the colours--gray, red, and umber, just
as Moran has painted them--reassured us. We seemed not so far from
home, after all.
It was Wyoming weather, though; clear and cold, after a windy night.
When, after breakfast, we went down to the river, we found that a
little ice had formed along the margin.
The days of final preparation passed quickly--with unpacking of
innumerable boxes and bundles, checking off each article against our
lists; and with a long and careful overhauling of our photographic
outfit.
This last was a most important task, for the success of our
expedition depended on our success as photographers. We could not
hope to add anything of importance to the scientific and topographic
knowledge of the canyons already existing: and merely to come out
alive at the other end did not make a strong appeal to our vanity.
We were there as scenic photographers in love with their work, and
determined to reproduce the marvels of the Colorado’s canyons, as far
as we could do it.
In addition to three film cameras we had 8 × 10 and 5 × 7 plate
cameras; a plentiful supply of plates and films; a large cloth
dark-room; and whatever chemicals we should need for tests. Most
important of all, we had brought a motion-picture camera. We had
no real assurance that so delicate an apparatus, always difficult
to use and regulate, could even survive the journey--much less, in
such inexperienced hands as ours, reproduce its wonders. But this,
nevertheless, was our secret hope, hardly admitted to our most
intimate friends--that we could bring out a record of the Colorado as
it is, a live thing, armed as it were with teeth, ready to crush and
devour.
There was shopping to do; for the purchases of provisions, with a few
exceptions, had been left to the last. There were callers, too--an
embarrassing number of them. We had camped on a small island near
the town, not knowing when we did so that it had recently been put
aside for a public park. The whole of Green River City, it seemed,
had learned of our project, and came to inspect, or advise, or jeer
at us. The kindest of them wished us well; the other sort told us
“it would serve us right”; but not one of our callers had any
encouragement to offer. Many were the stories of disaster and death
with which they entertained us. One story in particular, as it seems
never to have reached print--though unquestionably true--ought to be
set down here.
Three years before two young men from St. Louis had embarked here,
intending to follow the river throughout its whole course. They were
expert canoeists, powerful swimmers, and equipped with a steel boat,
we were told, built somewhat after the style of a canoe. They chose
the time of high water--not knowing, probably, that while high water
decreases the labour of the passage, it greatly increases the danger
of it. They came to the first difficult rapid in Red Canyon, seventy
odd miles below Green River City. It looked bad to them. They landed
above it and stripped to their underclothing and socks. Then they
pushed out into the stream.
Almost at once they lost control of the boat. It overturned; it
rolled over and over; it flung them off and left them swimming for
their lives. In some way, possibly the currents favouring, they
reached the shore. The boat, with all its contents, was gone. There
they were, almost naked, without food, without weapons, without
the means of building a fire; and in an uninhabited and utterly
inhospitable country.
For four days they wandered, blistered by the sun by day; nearly
frozen at night, bruised by the rocks, and torn by the brambles.
Finally they reached the ranch at the head of the canyons and were
found by a half-breed Indian, who cared for them. Their underwear
had been made into bindings for their lacerated feet; they were
nearly starved, and on the verge of mental collapse. After two weeks’
treatment in the hospital at Green River City they were partially
restored to health. Quite likely they spent many of the long hours
of their convalescence on the river bank, or on the little island,
watching the unruffled stream glide underneath the cottonwoods.
Such tales as this added nothing to our fears, of course--for the
whole history of the Colorado is one long story of hardship and
disaster, and we knew, even better than our advisors, what risks lay
before us. We told our newfound friends, in fact, that we had lived
for years on the brink of the Grand Canyon itself, a gorge deeper
and more awful, even, than Lodore; with a volume of water ten times
greater. We knew, of course, of the river’s vast length, of the
terrible gorges that confined it, of the hundreds of rapids through
which a boat would have to pass.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Kolb Bros._
IN THE GRAND CANYON NEAR THE LITTLE COLORADO.]
We knew, too, how Major Powell, undismayed by legends of underground
channels, impassable cataracts, and whirlpools; of bloodthirsty
tribes haunting its recesses,--had passed through the canyons in
safety, measuring and surveying as he went. We also knew of the
many other attempts that had been made--most of them ending in
disaster or death, a very few being successful.
Well, it had been done;[1] it could be done again--this was our
answer to their premonitions.
We had present worries enough to keep us from dwelling too much on
the future. It had been our intention to start two weeks earlier, but
there had been numerous unavoidable delays. The river was low; “the
lowest they had seen it in years” they told us, and falling lower
every day. There were the usual difficulties of arranging a lot of
new material, and putting it in working order.
At last we were ready for the boats, and you may be sure we lost no
time in having them hauled to the river, and launching them.
They were beauties--these two boats of ours--graceful, yet strong in
line, floating easily, well up in the water, in spite of their five
hundred pounds’ weight. They were flat-bottomed, with a ten-inch rake
or raise at either end; built of white cedar, with unusually high
sides; with arched decks in bow and stern, for the safe storing of
supplies. Sealed air chambers were placed in each end, large enough
to keep the boats afloat even if filled with water. The compartment
at the bow was lined with tin, carefully soldered, so that even a
leak in the bottom would not admit water to our precious cargoes. We
had placed no limit on their cost, only insisting that they should
be of materials and workmanship of the very best, and strictly in
accordance with our specifications. In every respect but one they
pleased us. Imagine our consternation when we discovered that the
hatch covers were anything but water-tight, though we had insisted
more upon this, perhaps, than upon any other detail. Loose boards,
with cross-pieces, fastened with little thumbscrews--there they were,
ready to admit the water at the very first upset.
There was nothing to be done. It was too late to rebuild the hatches
even if we had had the proper material. Owing to the stage of water
it was imperative that we should start at once. Bad as it would be to
have water in our cargo, it would be worse to have too little water
in the rock-obstructed channels of Red Canyon, or in the “flats” at
Brown’s Park for instance.
Certainly the boats acted so beautifully in the water that we could
almost overlook the defective hatches. Emery rowed upstream for a
hundred yards, against a stiff current, and came back jubilant.
“They’re great--simply great!” he exclaimed.
We had one real cause for worry, for actual anxiety, though; and as
each hour brought us nearer to the time of departure, we grew more
and more desperate. What about our third man?
We were convinced that a third man was needed; if not for the duties
of camp making, helping with the cooking and portaging; at least, for
turning the crank of the motion-picture camera. Emery and I could
not very well be running rapids, and photographing ourselves in the
rapids at the same time. Without a capable assistant, therefore, much
of the real purpose would be defeated.
Our first move, accordingly, had been to secure the services of a
strong, level-headed, and competent man. Friends strongly advised us
to engage a Canadian canoe-man, or at least some one familiar with
the management of boats in rough water. It was suggested, also, that
we might secure the help of some one of the voyagers who had been
members of one of the previous expeditions.
But--we may as well be frank about it--we did not wish to be piloted
through the Colorado by a guide. We wanted to make our own trip in
our own way. If we failed, we would have no one but ourselves to
blame; if we succeeded, we would have all the satisfaction that comes
from original, personal exploration. In other words, we wanted a man
to execute orders, not to give them. But that man was hard to find!
There had been many applicants; some of them from distant parts of
the country. One by one they were sifted out. At length we decided
on one man; but later he withdrew. We turned elsewhere, but these
applications were withdrawn, until there remained but a single
letter, from a young man in San Francisco. He seemed in every way
qualified. We wrote accepting his application, but while waiting to
hear from us a civil service position had been offered and accepted.
“He was sorry”; and so were we, for his references proved that he
was a capable man. Later he wrote that he had secured a substitute.
We replied on the instant, by wiring money for transportation, with
instructions for the new man to report at once at Green River.
We took very much for granted, having confidence in our friends’
sincerity and knowledge of just what was required.
The time had passed, two days before; but--no sign of our man! We
wrote, we telegraphed, we walked back and forth to every train; but
still he did not come. Had this man, too, failed us?
Then “Jimmy” came--just the night before we were to leave. And never
was a man more heartily welcome!
With James Fagen of San Francisco our party was complete. He was an
Irish-American, aged 22 years, a strong, active, and willing chap. To
be sure, he was younger, and not so experienced at “roughing it” as
we had hoped. But his good qualities, we were sure, would make up for
what was lacking.
[Illustration: THE START AT GREEN RIVER, WYOMING.]
[Illustration: FIRE HOLE CHIMNEYS.]
Evening found us encamped a half mile below the town, the county
bridge. Our preparations were finished--even to the final purchase of
odds and ends; with ammunition for shot-gun and rifle. We threw our
sleeping-bags on the dry ground close to the river’s edge, and, all
our anxieties gone, we turned our faces to the stars and slept.
At daybreak we were aroused by the thunder of hoofs on the bridge
above us, and the shouts of cowboys driving a large herd of
half-broken horses. We tumbled into our clothes, splashed our faces
with ice-cold water from the river, and hurried over to the hotel for
a last breakfast.
Then we sat down--in the little hotel at Green River City--as others
had done before, to write last messages to those who were nearest
and dearest to us. A telegram to our parents in an Eastern city; and
another to Emery’s wife and little girl, at Bright Angel, more than
eight hundred miles down this self-same river--these, somehow, took
longer to write than the letters themselves. But whatever we may have
felt, we finished this final correspondence in silence, and hurried
back to the river.
Something of a crowd had gathered on the bridge to wish us _bon
voyage_. Shouting up to them our thanks for their hospitality, and
telling them to “look pleasant,” we focussed the motion-picture
camera on them, Emery turning the crank, as the boat swung out into
the current.
So began our journey, on Friday, September the 8th, 1911, at 9.30
A.M., as entered in my journal.