CHAPTER V. THE BATTLE WITH LODORE

Camp routine was hurriedly disposed of the next morning, Saturday, September the 23d. Everything was made snug beneath the hatches, except the two guns, which were too long to go under the decks, and had to be carried in the open cockpits. "Camp No. 13, at the head of Lodore," as it is entered in my journal, was soon hidden by a bend in the river. The open, sun-lit country, with its pleasant ranches and its grazing cattle, its rolling, gray, sage-covered hills and its wild grass and cottonwood-covered bottoms, was left behind, and we were back in the realm of the rock-walled canyon, and beetle-browed, frowning cliffs with pines and cedars clutching at the scanty ledges.

We paused long enough to make a picture or two, with the hope that the photographic record would give to others some idea of the geological and scenic wonder - said to be the greatest known example of its kind - which lay before us. Here is an obstructing mountain raised directly in the river's path. Yet with no deviation whatever the stream has cut through the very centre of the peak! The walls are almost sheer, especially at the the bottom, and are quite close together at the top. A mile inside the mountain on the left or east side of the gorge is 2700 feet high. Geologists say that the river was here first and that the mountain was slowly raised in its pathway - so slowly that the river could saw away and maintain its old channel. The quicksand found below the present level would seem to indicate that the walls were once even higher than at present, and that a subsidence had taken place after the cutting.

The river at the entrance of this rock-walled canyon was nothing alarming, four small rapids being passed without event. Then a fifth was reached that looked worse. The Edith was lined down. This was hard work, and dangerous too, owing to the strength of the current and the many rocks; so I concluded that my own boat, the Defiance, must run the rapid. Jimmy went below, with a life-preserver on a rope. Emery stood beside the rapid with a camera and made a picture as I shot past him. Fortunately I got through without mishap. I refused to upset even to please my brother.

We were beginning to think that Lodore was not so bad after all. Rapid followed rapid in quick succession, and all were run without trouble; then we came to a large one. It was Upper Disaster Falls; so named by Major Powell, for it was here that one of his boats was wrecked on his first voyage of exploration. This boat failed to make the landing above the rapid and was carried over. She struck a rock broadside, turned around and struck again, breaking the boat completely in two. This boat was built of 3/4-inch oak reenforced with bulkheads. When this fact is taken into consideration, some idea may be had of the great power of these rapids. The three men who occupied the boat saved themselves by reaching an island a short distance below.

This all happened on a stage of water much higher than the present one, so we did not let the occurrence influence us one way or the other, except to make us careful to land above the rapid. We found a very narrow channel between two submerged boulders, the water plunging and foaming for a short distance below, over many hidden rocks. Still, there was only one large rock near the lower end that we greatly feared, and by careful work that might be avoided.

The Edith went first and grazed the boulder slightly, but no harm was done as E.C. held his boat well in hand. I followed, and struck rocks at the same instant on both sides of the narrow channel with my oars. It will be remembered that we ran all these dangerous rapids facing downstream. The effect of this was to shoot the ends of both oars up past my face. The operator said that I made a grimace just as he took a picture of the scrimmage.

We landed on the island below and talked of camping for the night, as it was getting late; but the island so rocky and inhospitable that we concluded to try the lower part of the rapid. This had no descent like the upper end; but it was very shallow, and we soon found ourselves on rocks, unable to proceed any farther. It took an hour of hard labour to work our heavy boats safely to the shore.

We had been hoping for a rest the next day - Sunday - but the island was such a disagreeable place to camp that it seemed necessary to cross to the mainland at least. A coil of strong, pliable wire had been included in our material. Here was a chance to use it to advantage. The stream on the left side of the island could be waded, although it was very swift; and we managed to get the wire across and well fastened at both ends. Elevating the wire above the water with cross-sticks, our tent and camp material were run across on a pulley, and camp was pitched a hundred yards below, on the left shore of the river.

There were fitful showers in the afternoon, and we rested from our labour, obtaining a great deal of comfort from our tent, which was put up here for the third time since leaving Green River City. Always, when the weather was clear, we slept in the open.

Monday, the 25th, found us at the same camp. Having concluded that Disaster Falls was an ideal place for a moving picture, we sent the balance of the material across on the pulley and wire, making a picture of the operation; stopping often because it continued to shower. Between showers we resumed our work and picture making.

The picture was to have been concluded with the operation of lining the boat across. E.C. stood on the shore about sixty feet away, working with the camera; Jimmy was on the island, paying out the rope; while I waded in the water, holding the bow of the boat as I worked her between the rocks. Having reached the end of the rope, I coiled it up, advising Jimmy to go up to a safe crossing and join my brother while I proceeded with the boat. All was going well, and I was nearing the shore, when I found myself suddenly carried off my feet into water beyond my depth, and drifting for the lower end of the rapid. Meanwhile I was holding to the bow of the boat, and calling lustily to my brother to save me. At first he did not notice that anything was wrong, as he was looking intently through the finder. Then he suddenly awoke to the fact that something was amiss, and came running down the boulder-strewn shore, but he could not help me, as we had neglected to leave a rope with him. Things were beginning to look pretty serious, when the boat stopped against a rock and I found myself once more with solid footing under me. It was too good a picture to miss; and I found the operator at the machine, turning the crank as I climbed out.

We developed some films and plates that evening, securing some satisfactory results from these tests. It continued to rain all that night, with intermittent showers next morning. The rain made little difference to us, for we were in the water much of the following day as he boats were taken along the edge of another unrunnable rapid, a good companion rapid for the one just passed.

This was Lower Disaster Falls, the first of many similar rapids we were to see, but this was one of the worst of its kind. The swift-rushing river found its channel blocked by the canyon wall on the right side, the cliff running at right angles to the course of the stream. The river, attacking the limestones, had cut a channel under the wall, then turned and ran with the wall, emerging about two hundred feet below. Standing on a rock and holding one end of a twenty-five foot string we threw a stone attached to the other end across to the opposite wall. The overhanging wall was within two feet of the rushing river; a higher stage of water would hide the cut completely from view. Think what would happen if a boat were carried against or under that wall! We thought of it many times as we carefully worked our boats along the shore.

Between the delays of rain, with stops for picture making, portaging our material, and "lining" our boats, we spent almost three days in getting past the rapids called Upper and Lower Disaster Falls, with their combined fall of 50 feet in little more than half a mile. On the evening of September the 26th we camped almost within sight of this same place, at the base of a 3000-foot sugar-loaf mountain on the right, tree-covered from top to bottom.

Things were going too easily for us, it seemed; but we were in for a few reverses. It stormed much of the night and still drizzled when we embarked on the following morning. The narrow canyon was gloomy and darkened with shreds of clouds drifting far below the rim. The first rapid was narrow, and contained some large boulders. The Edith was caught on one of these and turned on her side, so that the water flowed in, filling the cockpit. The boat was taken off without difficulty, and bailed out. We found that the bulkheads failed to keep the water out of the hatches. Some material from the Edith was transferred to the Defiance. A bed, in a protecting sack of rubber and canvas, was shoved under the seat and we proceeded.

Less than an hour later I repeated my brother's performance, but I was not so fortunate as he. The Defiance was carried against one rock as I tried to pull clear of another, and in an instant she was on her side, held by the rush of water. I caught the gunwale, and, climbing on to the rock that caused the disaster, I managed to catch the rope and held the boat. In the meantime Emery was in a whirlpool below, trying to land on the right side; but was having a difficult time of it. Jimmy stood on the shore unable to help. The bed was washed out of the boat and went bobbing over the waves, then before I knew what had happened, the rope was jerked from my hands and I was left stranded on my rock. Seeing this, Jimmy ran with all his might for a pool at the end of the rapid, bravely rescuing the boat and the bed as well, just as the Edith was landed. A rope was soon thrown to me, after the inevitable picture was made. Then I jumped and was pulled to shore.

On making an inventory we found that our guns were lost from the boat. Being too long to go under the hatches, they had been left in the cockpit. The Defiance had an ugly rap on the bottom, where she struck a rock, the wood being smashed or jammed, but not broken out. Nearly all material in the two boats was wet, so we took everything out and piled it on a piece of canvas, spread out on the sand. We worked rapidly, for another storm had been threatening all the morning.

We were engaged in putting up our little tent when a violent wind which swept up the canyon, followed by a downpour of rain interrupted our work; and if anything missed a soaking before, it certainly received it then. The sand was beaten into our cameras and everything was scattered helter-skelter over the shore. We were fortunate in only one respect. The wind was away from the river instead of toward it. We finally got the tent up, then threw everything into it in an indiscriminate pile, and waited for the storm to pass. Emery proposed that we do a song and dance just to show how good we felt; but any appearance of merriment was rather forced.

Had the builders of the boats been there, we fear they would have had an uncomfortable half-hour; for nearly all this loss could have been avoided had our instructions regarding the hatch covers been followed. And for the sake of their saving a few dollars we had to suffer!

The rain soon passed and we went to work, first starting a fire and getting a hurried lunch, for we had not eaten our noon meal, and it was then 4 P.M. We put up our dark-room tent, then went to work to find what was saved, and what was lost. We were surprised to find that all our small films and plates had escaped a soaking. Protected in tin and cardboard boxes, wrapped with adhesive tape, and covered with a coating of paraffine melted and poured over them, they had turned the water in nearly every instance. The motion-picture film was not so fortunate. The paraffine had worn off the tin boxes in spots, the water soaked through the tape in some instances, and entered to the film. One roll, tightly wrapped, became wet on the edges; the gelatine swelled and stuck to the other film, thus sealing the inner portion or picture part of the film, so that roll was saved.

The motion-picture camera was filled with water, mud and sand; and the other cameras fared likewise. We cleaned them out as best we could, drying them over small alcohol lamp which we had included in our duffle. Our job seemed endless. Jimmy had retired early, for he could help us but little in this work. It rained again in torrents, and the wind howled about the tent. After midnight, as we still toiled, a land-slide, loosened by the soaking rains, thundered down the mountain side about a fourth of a mile below our camp. We hoped Jimmy would not hear it. We retired soon after this. Smaller slides followed at intervals, descending over the 3000-foot precipices. Thunder reverberated through the canyon, and altogether it was a night long to be remembered. These slides made one feel a little uncomfortable. "It would be most inconvenient," as we have heard some one say, "to wake in the morning and find ourselves wrapped up in a few tons of earth and rock."

Emery woke me the next morning to report that the river had risen about six feet; and that my boat - rolled out on the sand but left untied - was just on the Point of going out with the water. It had proven fortunate for us all Emery was a light sleeper! There was no travelling this day, as the boat had to be repaired. Emery, being the ship's carpenter, set to work at once, while Jimmy and I stretched our ropes back and forth, and hung up the wet clothes. Then we built a number of fires underneath and soon had our belongings in a steam. Things were beginning to look cheerful again. The rain stopped, too, for a time at least.

A little later Jimmy ran into camp with a fish which he had caught with his hands. It was of the kind commonly called the bony-tail or humpback or buffalo-fish, a peculiar species found in many of the rivers of the Southwest. It is distinguished by a small flat head with a hump directly behind it; the end of the body being round, very slender, and equipped with large tail-fins. This specimen was about sixteen inches long, the usual length for a full-grown fish of this species.

Now for a fish story! On going down to the river we found a great many fish swimming in a small whirlpool, evidently trying to escape from the thick, slimy mud which was carried in the water. In a half-hour we secured fourteen fish, killing most of them with our oars. There were suckers and one catfish in the lot. You can judge for yourself how thick the water was, that such mudfishes as these should have been choked to helplessness. Our captured fish were given a bath in a bucket of rain-water, and we had a fish dinner.

In the afternoon we made a test of the water from the river, and found that it contained 20 per cent of an alkaline silt. When we had to use this water, we bruised the leaf of a prickly pear cactus, and placed it in a bucket of water. This method, repeated two or three times, usually clears the muddiest water. We also dug holes in the sand at the side of the river. The water, filtering through the sand, was often clear enough to develop the tests we made with our films.

Jimmy continued to feel downhearted; and this afternoon he told us his story. Our surmise about his being homesick was correct, but it was a little more than that. He had an invalid mother, it seemed, and, aided by an older brother, he had always looked after the needs of the family. When the proposition of making the river trip came up, serious objections were raised by the family; but when the transportation arrived he had determined to go, in spite of their objections. Now he feared that his mother would not live, or that we would be wrecked, and he would not know where to turn, or what to do. No wonder he felt blue!

All we could do was to promise to help him leave the river at the very first opportunity. This would quite likely be at Jensen, Utah, still fifty miles farther downstream.

It continued to rain by spells that night and the next morning. About 11 A.M. we resumed our work on the river. A short distance below our camp we saw the land-slide which we heard the night before - tons of earth and shattered rock wrapped about the split and stripped trunks of a half-dozen pines. The slide was started by the dislodged section of a sheer wall close to the top of the 2700-foot cliff. We also saw a boat of crude construction, pulled above the high-water mark; evidently abandoned a great while before. Any person who had to climb the walls at that place had a hard job to tackle, although we could pick out breaks where it looked feasible; there were a few places behind us where it would be next to impossible. We had only gone over a few rapids when we found a long pool, with driftwood eddying upstream, and knew that our run for the day was over - the Triplet Rapids were ahead of us. We found this rapid to be about a fourth of a mile long, divided into three sections as its name indicated, and filled with great boulders at the base of a sheer cliff on the right - another unrunnable rapid.

Taking the camp material from the boats, we carried it down and pitched our tent first of all, then, while Emery prepared supper, Jimmy and I carried the remaining duffle down to camp. One of the boats was lined down also. Then after supper we enjoyed the first rest we had taken for some time.

Camp Ideal we called it, and it well deserved the name. At the bottom of a tree-covered precipice reaching a height of 2700 feet, was a strip of firm, level sand, tapering off with a slope down to the water, making a perfect landing and dooryard. A great mass of driftwood, piled up at the end of the rapid, furnished us with all fuel we needed with small effort on our part. Our tent was backed against a large rock, while other flat rocks near at hand made convenient shelves on which to lay our camp dishes and kettles. It started to drizzle again that night, but what cared we? With a roaring fire in front of the tent we all cleaned up for a change, sewed patches on our tattered garments, and, sitting on our beds, wrote the day's happenings in our journals. Then we crawled into our comfortable beds, and I was soon dreaming of my boyhood days when I "played hookey" from school and went fishing in a creek that emptied into the Allegheny River, or climbed its rocky banks; to be awakened by Jimmy crying out in his sleep, "There she goes over the rapids."

Jimmy was soon informed that he and the boats were perfectly safe, and I was brought back to a realization of the fact that I was not going to get a "whaling" for going swimming in dog-days; but instead was holed up in Lodore Canyon, in the extreme northwestern corner of Colorado.