ON THE CREST OF A FLOOD
A westward-bound train was bearing me across the Mojave Desert one
day in May. In a few swiftly passing hours we had made a six-thousand
foot descent from the plateau with its fir and aspen-covered
mountain, its cedar and piñon-clothed foot-hills, and its extensive
forests of yellow pine. Crimson and yellow-flowered cactus, sage and
chaparral, succeeded the pines. The cool mountains had given way to
burned-out, umber-coloured hills, rock-ribbed arroyos, and seemingly
endless desert; and the sun was growing hotter every minute.
If the heat continued to increase, I doubted if I would care to
take a half-planned Colorado River trip down to the Gulf. Visions
of the California beaches, of fishing at Catalina and of horseback
rides over the Sierra’s trails, nearly unsettled my determination
to stop at Needles, on the California side of the river. This was
my vacation! Why undergo all the discomfort of a voyage on a desert
stream, when the pleasures and comforts of the Pacific beckoned?
One thing was sure, if I was not successful in securing a boat
at Needles, the very next train would find me on board, bound for
the Western Slope. By mid-afternoon the chaparral had disappeared
and only the cactus remained--the ocotilla, covered with a million
flowers, wave upon wave of crimson flame, against the yellow earth.
Violet-veiled mountains appeared in the west, marking the southern
trend of the Colorado. The air was suffocating. The train-created
wind was like a blast from a furnace; yet with the electric fans
whirring, with blinds drawn and windows closed to keep the withering
air _out_, it seemed a little less uncomfortable in the car, in spite
of the unvitalized air, than under the scorching sun.
We were beside the Colorado at last. I had a good view of the stream
below, as we crossed the bridge--the Colorado in flood, muddy,
turbulent, sweeping onward like an affrighted thing,--repulsive, yet
with a fascination for me, born of an intimate acquaintance with the
dangers of this stream. The river had called again! The heat was
forgotten, the visions of the coast faded, for me the train could not
reach Needles, ten miles up the river, quickly enough.
With my brother, I had followed this stream down to Needles, through
a thousand miles of canyon. I had seen how it carved its way through
the mountains, carrying them on, in solution, toward the ocean. At
last I would see what became of all these misplaced mountains. I
would see the tidal bore as it swept in from the Gulf. I had heard
there were wild hogs which burrowed through the cane-brake. It may
be that I would learn of a vessel at some port down on the Mexican
coast, which I might reach and which would take me around the Lower
California Peninsula. I felt sure there was such a port. No doubt I
could have found books to tell me exactly what I would see, but too
much information would spoil all the romance of such an adventure. It
was all very alluring. With the spring flood on, the river could not
help but be interesting and exciting, a pretty good imitation of the
rapids, perhaps. If I could only secure a boat!
Half an hour later I was meeting old acquaintances about the hotel,
connected with the station. The genial hotel manager, with the Irish
name, was smilingly explaining to some newcomers that this was not
hot; that “a dry heat at 110 degrees was not nearly as bad as 85
degrees back in Chicago,” “and as for heat,” he continued, “why
down in Yuma”--then he caught sight of me, with a grin on my face,
and perhaps he remembered that I had heard him say the same thing
two years before, when it was even hotter; and he came over with
out-stretched hand,--calling me uncomplimentary names, under his
breath, for spoiling the effect of his explanation; all which was
belied by his welcome. It takes an Irishman to run a big hotel in the
middle of the desert.
[Illustration: THE GRANITE GORGE, THIRTEEN HUNDRED FEET DEEP. NEAR
BRIGHT ANGEL TRAIL.]
A few inquiries brought out the information that I was not likely
to get a boat. The stores did not keep them. I should have given my
order two weeks before to an Indian who built boats to order at $2.00
a foot. This was a new one on me. Suppose a fellow wanted--well say,
about $15.00 worth. It would look something like a tub, wouldn’t it?
Perhaps it was to be the coast, for me, after all.
The Colorado River in flood is a terrible stream. Unlike the Eastern
rivers, there are no populous cities--with apologies to Needles and
Yuma--along its shores, to be inundated with the floods. Unlike the
rivers of the South, few great agricultural districts spread across
its bottoms. Along the upper seven hundred miles there are not a
half-dozen ranches with twenty-five acres under cultivation. But
if destructive power and untamed energy are terrible, the Colorado
River, in flood, is a terrible stream.
After changing into some comfortable clothes I sauntered past the
railway machine shops down to the river, and up to where a fight was
being waged to save the upper part of the town from being torn away
by the flood. For a month past, car after car of rock had been dumped
along the river bank, only to disappear in the quicksands; and as
yet no bottom had been reached. Up to this point the fight was about
equal. The flood would not reach its crest until two or three weeks
later.
Beyond a fisherman or two there were few men by the river. The
workmen had finished their day’s labour. A ferryman said that I might
talk an Indian into selling his boat, but it was doubtful. My next
job was to find such an Indian.
A big, greasy Mojave buck lay on an uncovered, rusty bed spring,
slung on a home-made frame, before his willow and adobe home,
close to the Colorado River. In answer to my repeated question he
uncoiled and stretched the full length of his six foot six couch,
grunted a few words in his native tongue to other Indians without a
glance in my direction, then indifferently closed his eyes again.
A young Indian in semi-cowboy garb,--not omitting a gorgeous silk
handkerchief about his neck,--jabbered awhile with some grinning
squaws, then said in perfectly understandable English, “He will sell
his boat for $18.00. It is worth $30.00.” This was decisive for an
Indian. It usually takes a half-day of bickering to get them to make
any kind of a bargain. I told him I would take it in the morning.
It was a well-constructed boat, almost new, built of inch pine,
flat-bottomed, and otherwise quite similar in shape to the boats my
brother and I had used on our twelve hundred mile journey through
the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers,--but without the
graceful lines and swells that made those other boats so valuable
to us in rapids. The boat was nearly new and well worth $30.00, as
boat prices went in that town. Why he was willing to sell it for
$18.00, or at the rate of $1.00 a foot, I could not imagine. It was
the first bargain an Indian had ever offered me. But if I paid for
it that evening, there were doubts in my mind if I should find it in
the morning, so I delayed closing the bargain and went back again to
inspect the boat.
That evening I inquired among my acquaintances if there was any one
who would care to accompany me. If so I would give them passage to
Yuma, or to the Gulf of California in Mexico, if they wished it. But
no one could go, or those who could, wouldn’t. One would have thought
from the stories with which I was regaled, that the rapids of the
Grand Canyon were below Needles, and as for going to the Gulf, it was
suicide. I was told of the outlaws along the border, of the firearms
and opium smugglers, who shot first and questioned afterward, and of
the insurrectos of Lower California. The river had no real outlet to
the ocean, they said, since the break into Salton Sea, but spread
over a cane-brake, thirty miles or more in width. Many people had
gone into these swamps and never returned, whether lost in the
jungles or killed by the Cocopah Indians, no one knew. They simply
disappeared. It was all very alluring.
My preparations, the next day, were few. I had included a sleeping
bag with my baggage. It would come in equally handy whether I went
down on the Colorado or up into the Coast Range. A frying-pan, a
coffee-pot a few metal dishes and provisions for a week were all I
needed. Someone suggested some bent poles, and a cover, such as are
used on wagons to keep off the sun. This seemed like a good idea;
and I hunted up a carpenter who did odd jobs. He did not have such a
one, but he did have an old wagon-seat cover, which could be raised
or dropped at will. This was even better, for sometimes hard winds
sweep up the river. The cover was fastened to the sides of the boat.
The boat, meanwhile, had been thoroughly scrubbed. It looked clean
before, but I was not going to take any chances at carrying Indian
live-stock along with his boat. My surplus baggage was sent on to Los
Angeles, and twenty-four hours after I had landed in Needles, I was
ready to embark.
My experience in camping trips of various sorts has been that
the start from headquarters occupies more time than any similar
preparation. Once on the road, things naturally arrange themselves
into some kind of a system, and an hour on the road in the evening
means several hours gained the next morning. Added to this, there are
always a number of loafers about railroad towns, and small things
have a way of disappearing. With this in mind, I determined to make
my start that evening, and at 7 P.M. on the 23d of May, 1913, I
embarked on a six to eight mile an hour current, paced by cottonwood
logs, carried down by the flood from the head waters in Wyoming,
Utah, and Colorado.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Kolb Bros._
THE GRAND CANYON FROM THE HEAD OF BRIGHT ANGEL TRAIL.]
When sailing on the unruffled current one did not notice its
swiftness--it sped so quietly yet at the same time with such deadly
intent--until some half submerged cottonwood snags appeared, their
jagged, broken limbs ploughing the stream exactly like the bow of a
motor-driven boat, throwing two diverging lines of waves far down the
stream. One would almost think the boat was motionless, it raced so
smoothly,--and that the snags were tearing upstream as a river man
had said, the day before, “like a dog with a bone in his teeth.” A
sunken stone-boat, with a cabin half submerged, seemed propelled by
some unseen power and rapidly dwindled in the distance.
So fascinating were these things that I forgot the approaching night.
I first noticed it when the stream slackened its mad pace and spread
over its banks into great wide marshes, in divided and subdivided
channels and over submerged islands, with nothing but willow and
fuzzy cattail tops to indicate that there was a bottom underneath.
Here there was no place to camp had I wished to do so. Once I missed
the main channel and had a difficult time in finding my way back in
the dark. After two or three miles of this quiet current, the streams
began to unite again, and the river regained its former speed. I was
growing weary after the first excitement, and began to wish myself
well out of it all and safely anchored to the shore. But I knew there
was a level bank above the river close to the bridge, which would
make a good camping place; so I rested on my oars facing down the
stream with eyes and ears alert for the treacherous snags. Then the
stars began to appear, one by one, lighting up the cloudless sky; a
moist, tropical-like breeze moved up the stream, the channel narrowed
and deepened, the snags vanished, and the stream increased its
swiftness.
And with eyes wide open, but unseeing, I dozed.
It was the lights of a passenger train crossing the bridge, just a
short distance away, that made me realize where I was. The train
thundered into the darkness; but louder than the roar of the train
was that of the water directly ahead, and hidden in the impenetrable
shadow over on the right shore was a noise much like that made by a
Grand Canyon rapid.
Wide awake now, I pulled for the left, and after one or two attempts
to land, I caught some willow tops and guided the boat to the raised
bank. Beyond the willows was a higher ground, covered with a mesquite
thicket, with cattle trails winding under the thorny trees. Here I
unrolled my sleeping bag, then went up to interview the operator and
the watchman, and to get a drink of clear water, for I had no desire
to drink the liquid mud of the Colorado until it was necessary. In
answer to a question I told them of my little ride. One of the men
exclaimed, “You don’t mean to say that you came down on the flood
after dark!” On being informed that I had just arrived, he exclaimed:
“Well I reckon you don’t know what the Colorado is. It’s a wonder
this whirlpool didn’t break you against the pier. You ought to have
brought some one with you to see you drown!”