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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



age. Landslides vied with the thunder, 

 the wind, and the rain that night to add 

 to our discomfort. And as we slept Jim- 

 mie rose up in his sleep and called, 

 "There she goes over the rapids." 



We awoke the following morning to 

 find a 6-foot rise on the river. It was so 

 muddy that fish were swimming on the 

 top of the water, gasping for fresh 

 water. We secured 14 by striking them 

 with our oars. When suckers and cat- 

 fish come to the top on account of mud 

 in the water it is pretty bad. A test of 

 the water showed that it contained 20 

 per cent of an alkaline silt. Afterward 

 we found many dead fis-h, with their gills 

 filled with this mud. 



We had suspected Jinimie of home- 

 sickness for some time. This day he 

 told us his story. He had an invalid 

 mother, and he had always looked after 

 the needs of the family, aided by an 

 older brother. When the proposition of 

 taking the river trip came up, serious ob- 

 jections were raised by the family; but 

 when the ticket came he concluded to go, 

 with or without their consent. Now he 

 feared that his mother would not live, or 

 that we would be drowned, and that he 

 would be left on the shore and would be 

 unable to get out. All this he told us 

 with tears in his eyes. No wonder he 

 felt blue. 



We cheered him all we could, and told 

 him we would send him out at the first 

 opportunity. 



RUNNING THROUGH LODORE 



The last place of importance in Lodore 

 Canyon had been named Hell's Half 

 Mile (see pages 146 and 147). We 

 thought it was all of that and then some. 

 The entire stream was blocked by a lot 

 of massive rocks, flung from the clifi^s 

 above in riotous confusion. This had 

 happened at a point where the descent of 

 the river was the greatest yet encoun- 

 tered. On the left side the barrier of 

 rocks was crowned by a giant cotton- 

 wood once washed down on a flood, with 

 its roots extending over the foaming tor- 

 rent, which whirled and tore through 

 every crevice between the rocks. 



We carried all the weight from the 

 boats high above the rapids, climbing- 



over mud-covered boulders, dodging 

 under scrubby trees, sliding down re- 

 cently washed-out gullies, staggering 

 under the weight of the loads. Many 

 times we fell, bruising ourselves on the 

 marble-like rocks. The recent rise in the 

 river, which had now receded, had left 

 a slime of mud over these rounded 

 boulders. Our clothes were torn to tat- 

 ters. It took 18 loads to empty the boats. 

 Carefully inflating our life-preservers 

 and adjusting them, we then went to 

 work on the Defiance. Our other ex- 

 periences at working past difficult rapids 

 were as child's play when compared with 

 this. At first, where the rapid was less 

 violent, we lined the boat from the shore, 

 or I rowed, pulling upstream, dodging 

 here and there, while my brother held the 

 line on shore, dropping her down as each 

 threatening rock was passed. We strug- 

 gled to retain our footing when standing, 

 waist deep, in the water below protecting 

 boulders, as we lifted the stern over a 

 submerged rock, then slid the boat for- 

 ward (see pages 146 and 147) ; she 

 would balance a moment, the bow would 

 shoot into the air, then fall down with a 

 thud and another rock was passed. 



WHEN SECONDS COUNT 



The slightest miscalculation would 

 mean a wrecked boat ; the least misstep 

 would plunge us into the torrent. The 

 life-preservers would have been of little 

 use there. The rocks would soon batter 

 one into insensibility. Even in less vio- 

 lent water the heavy sand collecting in 

 the clothes soon sinks a swimmer, and a 

 body once taken down in that manner 

 seldom rises to the surface. 



When we came to the barrier, we con- 

 cluded the only way to pass this in safety 

 was to nail skids to an upright log which 

 we found wedged between two large 

 rocks at the end of the cotton wood tree. 

 Both the log and the tree seemed to have 

 been placed there for our convenience. 

 In all this work there was only room for 

 two, so we made use of this opportunity 

 to get a motion picture — the last we were 

 to get with Jimmie's assistance. During 

 the breathing spells we would look up 

 and find he was forgetting to turn the 

 crank. We would call to him, then all 





