The Marie Smashed 
363 
It came up only two feet, and this was a kindness, for it lifted 
the Marie so that they were able to pull her out of the vise. 
When they saw her condition, however, they were dismayed 
for one side was half gone, and the other was smashed in. 
The keel remained whole. By cutting four feet out of the 
centre and drawing the ends together, five days’ hard work 
made practically another boat. They were then able to pro¬ 
ceed, and, going past Bright Angel Creek, arrived on February 
6th at what Stanton describes as “the most powerful and un¬ 
manageable rapid ’’ on the river. This, I believe, was the place 
where we were capsized, Thompson at that time, before we 
ran it, declared it looked to him like the worst rapid we had 
encountered but at the stage of water then prevailing we could 
not get near it. Stanton wisely made a portage of the sup¬ 
plies and let the boats down by lines. His boat, the Bonnie 
Jeaji, played all sorts of pranks, rushing out into the current, 
ducking and diving under water, and finally floating down 
sideways. Then they thought they would try what Stanton 
calls Powell’s plan of shooting a boat through and catching it 
below. Such a harum-scarum method was never used on our 
expedition, and I never heard Powell suggest that it was on 
the first. Stanton evidently misunderstood some of Powell’s 
phrases in his Report. At any rate in this instance it was as 
disastrous as might have been expected. The poor Marie was 
again the sufferer, and came out below “in pieces about the 
size of toothpicks.’’ The Lillie was then carried down and 
reached the river beyond in safety. A day or two after this 
McDonald decided to leave the party, and started up a little 
creek coming in from the north, to climb out to the plateau, 
and make his way to Kanab. This he succeeded in doing after 
several days of hard work and tramping through the heavy 
snow on the plateau. The other ten men concluded to remain 
with Stanton and they all went on in the two boats. Several 
days later they passed the mouth of the Kanab. The terrible 
First Granite Gorge was well behind them. But now the river 
began to rise. Before reaching the Kanab it rose four feet and 
continued to rise for two days and nights, altogether some 
ten or twelve feet. A little below the Kanab, where the can- 
