253 
A Hard Landing 
down over one of these places, having just run a rather bad 
rapid, when we saw only a few hundred yards below an 
ugly looking fall. The left wall came down very straight 
into the water and threw a deep shadow over it so that we 
could not tell exactly what was there. Opposite was a rocky 
wooded point, and between the two the river bodily fell away. 
Altogether it was a beautiful, though a startling picture. The 
whole set of the current was towards this drop with headlong 
fury. There were no eddies, no slack water of any kind. But 
we could not do such a foolhardy thing as to go into it without 
knowing what it was and therefore a landing was imperative. 
Accordingly we headed for the right bank, and laid to our oars 
till they bent like straws. We almost reached the shore. It 
was only a few feet away, but the relentless current was hurl¬ 
ing us, broadside on, toward the dark rocks where the smooth 
water was broken and torn and churned to shreds of snowy 
foam. There was only one thing for us to do, if we did not 
want to run upon the rocks, and that was to leap overboard, 
and trust to bringing the boat to a stop by holding on to the 
bottom, here not so far down. This was done, and the depth 
turned out to be about to our waists; but for a little time the 
boat sped on as before. Planting our shoes firmly against the 
boulders of the bottom as we slid along, we finally gained 
the upper hand, and then it was an easy matter to reach the 
shore. Hardly had we done this when the Nell came tearing 
down in the same fashion. We rushed into the water as far as 
we dared, and they pulled with a will till they came to us, when 
they all jumped into the water and we tugged the boat ashore, 
just in time to plunge in again and help the Cafionita in the 
same way. Dinner over, the rapid was examined and it was 
discovered that by pulling straight out into it clear of the rocks, 
we could easily get through. This was accordingly done and 
one after the other the boats sped down as if towed by an ex¬ 
press train. Then we ran a number of smaller ones with no 
trouble, and toward evening arrived at a place where the entire 
river dropped into a sag, before falling over some very bad 
rapids. We avoided the sag by keeping close to the left bank, 
and rounded a little point into a broad eddy, across which we 
