into eddies and cross-currents by rocks projecting from the cliffs and
piles of boulders in the channel, it requires excessive labor and much
care to prevent the boats from being dashed against the rocks or
breaking away. Sometimes we are compelled to hold the boat against a
rock above a chute until a second line, attached to the stem, is carried
to some point below, and when all is ready the first line is detached
and the boat given to the current, when she shoots down and the men
below swing her into some eddy.

At such a place we are letting down the last boat, and as she is set
free a wave turns her broadside down the stream, with the stem, to which
the line is attached, from shore and a little up. They haul on the line
to bring the boat in, but the power of the current, striking obliquely
against her, shoots her out into the middle of the river. The men have
their hands burned with the friction of the passing line; the boat
breaks away and speeds with great velocity down the stream. The "Maid of
the Canyon" is lost! So it seems; but she drifts some distance and
swings into an eddy, in which she spins abont until we arrive with the
small boat and rescue her.

Soon we are on our way again, and stop at the mouth of a little brook on
the right for a late dinner. This brook comes down from the distant
mountains in a deep side canyon. We set out to explore it, but are soon
cut off from farther progress up the gorge by a high rock, over which
the brook glides in a smooth sheet. The rock is not quite vertical, and
the water does not plunge over it in a fall.

Then we climb up to the left for an hour, and are 1,000 feet above the
river and 600 above the brook. Just before us the canyon divides, a
little stream coming down on the right and another on the left, and we