discovering a smaller cañon, where a stream
made its way into the main river; and got
at last to the bottom, where they
encamped. They were much disheartened
and talked of returning home. Captain
Banker, however, kept up their spirits,
and sang songs over the camp-fire, and
when they started next morning they were
in very good heart. They were climbing
the precipitous bank, Baker in front, then
James White, lastly, Strole with the mules,
when suddenly they heard the war-whoop
of the Apache, the most cowardly and cruel
of the Indian tribes thereabouts. A shower
of bullets and arrows followed, poor Baker
fell immediately, and though he raised
himself against a rock and fired in return,
he called out to the others who were
hurrying up to his help, " Back, boys, save
yourselves, I'm dying!" They stood by
him nevertheless, till the breath left his
body, firing on the Indians as they came
up. The delay of the wretched Apache
in scalping the dead body enabled the two
men to rush down the chasm once more,
secure the arms, a stock of provisions, and
the " lariats" of the mules. There was no
chance of saving the animals.

It was quite impossible to escape by the
upper country, where they were certain to
fall into the hands of the Indians, and they
followed the stream for four hours, when it
flowed into the great Colorado at a low strip
of "bottom land," where the cold grey
walls, which must here have been two
thousand feet high, hemmed them in, and
there was no possible outlet but along the
river itself. A good deal of drift-wood lay
on the shore, and they put together a
frail raft of three trunks of the cotton-
tree, about ten feet long and eight inches
in diameter, fastened with their mule ropes,
and then picked out a couple of stout poles
to serve as paddles to guide it. It is a
proof how little they realised the frightful
security of their prison walls that they
waited until the moon went down for fear
they should be seen by Indians. About
midnight they launched their miserable
raft, and went rushing down the yawning
canon, tossing and whirling about in the
eddies, and dashing against the rocks in the
dark. Early in the morning they found a
place where they could land, but the walls
seemed to be increasing in height. They
strengthened their raft, and ate some of
their food, which was by this time quite
soaked. The width of the cañon seemed
to them some sixty or seventy yards, and the
current carried them about three miles an
hour. That day, they reached the
confluence with the Rio Grande, but the two
rivers were hardly wider, though deeper,
than the one; the depth of the fissure at this
point is estimated, by trigonometrical
estimates made afterwards, to be about four
thousand feet, with pinnacles of immense
height standing out in places. At night
they fastened themselves to a rock, or
hauled up their raft on some "bottom land."
The perpendicular walls were composed of
grey sand-rock, the lower portions worn
smooth by the action of floods, up to about
forty feet. A little line of blue sky showed
high above them, but the sun shone only
for an hour or so in the day it was a dark
gloomy abyss, where nothing grew, and not
so much as a bird was to be seen. Every now
and then they shot past side cañons, which
looked black and forbidding, like cells in
the walls of a massy prison. They
remembered, however, that Baker had told them
the town of Colville was at the mouth of
the cañon where the river Colorado entered
the plain. They thought they could make
their provisions last five days, and " surely
such wonderful walls could not last for
ever."

Before long, they reached what they
believed to be the opening into the San Juan
river, and attempted to turn the raft into it;
but the swift current drove them back, the
water reached from wall to wall, and there
was no possibility of landing. Still they
floated on, every bend seeming to take
them deeper into the bowels of the earth;
the walls above appeared to come closer
and shut out more of the narrow belt of sky;
to make the shadows blacker, and redouble
the echoes. They were constantly wet, but
the water was comparatively warm (it was
August) , and the currents were more regular
than they had expected. Strole steered, and
often set the end of the pole against a rock
while he leaned with his whole weight on
the other end to push off the raft. On
the third day they heard a deep roar of
waters, the raft was violently agitated, and
seemed as if it must be whirled against
a wall which barred all further progress.
The river, however, made a sharp bend,
and they saw before them a long vista of
water lashed into foam, and pouring through
a deep gorge full of huge masses of rock
fallen from above. The raft swept on,
shivering as if the logs would break up;
the waves dashed over the men, and they
seemed to be buried under them. Strole
stood up with his pole to attempt to guide
their course, when suddenly they plunged