Stanton’s Expedition 
359 
were life-lines along the sides. They were certainly excellent 
boats, and while in some respects I think our model was better, 
especially because the two transverse bulkheads amidships in 
ours tended to make their sides very strong and stiff, yet these 
boats of Stanton’s were so good that the men would be safe as 
long as they handled them correctly. Cork life-preservers of 
the best quality were provided, and the order was for each man 
to wear his whenever in rough or uncertain water. All stores 
and provisions were packed in water-tight rubber bags, made 
like ocean mail-sacks, expressly for the purpose. The expedi¬ 
tion was thus well provided. 
From the railway^ the boats were hauled on waggons to the 
mouth of Crescent Creek near Fremont River, so as to avoid 
doing Cataract Canyon over again. There were twelve men, 
of whom four had been with the Brown party. They were R. 
B. Stanton, Langdon Gibson, Harry McDonald, and Elmer 
Kane, in boat No. i, called the Bomiie Jemi; John Hislop^ 
F. A. Nims, Reginald Travers, and W. H. Edwards in boat 
No. 2, called the Lillie; and A. B. Twining, H. G. Ballard, 
L. G. Brown, and James Hogue, the cook, in the Mm'ie, boat 
No. 3. Christmas dinner was eaten at Lee’s Eerry, with wild 
flowers picked that day for decoration. On the 28th they 
started into the great canyon, passed the old wreck of a boat 
and part of a miner’s outfit, and on the 31st reached the rapid 
where Brown was lost. It was now the season of low water, 
and the rapid appeared less formidable, though on entering it 
the place was seen to be in general the same, yet the water 
was nine feet lower. The next day Nims, the photographer, 
fell from a ledge a distance of twenty-two feet, receiving a 
severe jar and breaking one of his legs just above the ankle. 
The break was bandaged, and one of the boats being so loaded 
that there was a level bed for the injured man to lie on, they 
ran down about two miles to a side canyon coming in from 
the north. By means of this Stanton climbed out, walked 
thirty-five miles to Lee’s Ferry, and brought a waggon back to 
the edge. Nims was placed on an improvised stretcher, and 
carried up the cliffs, four miles in distance and seventeen hun¬ 
dred feet in altitude. At half-past three in the afternoon the 
’ The Rio Grande Western. 
