Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico Part 12

The guides had good news for us and bad news too. Emery's wife had been ill with appendicitis nearly all the time we were on our journey.

We had received letters from her at every post-office excepting Lee's Ferry, but never a hint that all was not well. She knew it would break up the trip. Pretty good nerve, we thought!

Ragged and weary, but happy; a little lean and over-trained, but feeling entirely "fit,"--we commenced our seven-mile climb up the trail, every turn of which seemed like an old friend. When 1300 feet above the river, our little workshop beside a stream on the plateau--only used at intervals when no water can be had on top, and closed for three months past--gave us our first cheerless greeting.

Although little more than a hundred feet from the trail, we did not stop to inspect it. Cameron's Indian Garden Camp was also closed for the day, and we were disappointed in a hope that we could telephone to our home, 3200 feet above. But the tents, under rows of waving cottonwoods, and surrounded by beds of blooming roses and glorious chrysanthemums, gave us a more cheerful welcome than our little building below. We only stopped to quench our thirst in the bubbling spring, then began the four-mile climb that would put us on top of the towering cliff. Soon we overtook the party we had seen on the plateau.

Some of the tourists kindly offered us their mules, but mules were too slow for us, and they were soon far below us. Calls, faint at first, but growing louder as we advanced, came floating down from above. On nearing the top our younger brother Ernest, who had come on from Pittsburg to look after our business, came running down the trail to greet us. One member of a troupe of moving-picture actors, in cowboy garb, remarked that we "didn't look like moving-picture explorers"; then little Edith emerged from our studio just below the head of Bright Angel Trail and came skipping down toward us, but stopped suddenly when near us, and said smilingly: "Is that my Daddy with all those whiskers?"

CHAPTER XX

ONE MONTH LATER

Naturally we were very impatient to know just what success we had met with in our photographic work. Some of the motion pictures had been printed and returned to us. My brother, who meanwhile had taken his family to Los Angeles, sent very encouraging reports regarding some of the films.

Among the Canyon visitors who came down to inspect the results of our trip were Thomas Moran, the famous artist, with his daughter, Miss Ruth, whose interest was more than casual. Thomas Moran's name, more than any other, with the possible exception of Major Powell's, is to be a.s.sociated with the Grand Canyon. It was his painting which hangs in the capital at Was.h.i.+ngton that first acquainted the American public with the wonders of the Canyon. This painting was the result of a journey he made with Major Powell, from Salt Lake City to the north side of the Canyon, thirty-eight years before. In addition he had made most of the cuts that ill.u.s.trated Major Powell's government report; making his sketches on wood from photographs this expedition had taken with the old-fas.h.i.+oned wet plates that had to be coated and developed on the spot--wonderful photographs, which for beauty, softness, and detail are not excelled, and are scarcely equalled by more modern plates and photographic results. The only great advantage of the dry plates was the fact that they could catch the action of the water with an instantaneous exposure, where the wet plates had to have a long exposure and lost that action.

Thomas Moran could pick up almost any picture that we made, and tell us at once just what section it came from and its identifying characteristics. His daughter, Miss Ruth, was just as much interested in our trip and its results. She was anxious to know when we would go on again and planned on making the trail trip down to the plateau to see us take the plunge over the first rough rapid. She was just a little anxious to see an upset, and asked if we could not promise that one would occur.

A month pa.s.sed before my brother returned from Los Angeles. His wife, who had remained there, was in good health again, and insisted on his finis.h.i.+ng the trip at once. We were just as anxious to have it finished, but were not very enthusiastic about this last part on account of some very cold weather we had been having. On the other hand, we feared if the trip was not finished then it might never be completed. So we consoled ourselves with the thought that it was some warmer at the bottom than it was on top, and prepared to make the final plunge--350 miles to Needles, with a 1600-foot descent in the 185 miles that remained of the Grand Canyon.

A foot of snow had fallen two nights before we planned on leaving. The thermometer had dropped to zero, and a little below on one occasion, during the nights for a week past. Close to the top the trail was filled with drifts. The walls were white with snow down to the plateau, 3200 feet below; something unusual, as it seldom descends as snow lower than two thousand feet, but turns to rain. But a week of cold, cloudy weather, accompanied by hard winds, had driven all warmth from the canyon, allowing this snow to descend lower than usual. Under such conditions the damp cold in the canyon, while not registered on the thermometer as low as that on top, is more penetrating. Very little sun reaches the bottom of the inner gorge in December and January. It is usually a few degrees colder than the inner plateau above it, which is open, and does get some sun. These were the conditions when we returned to our boats December the 19th, 1911, and found a thin covering of ice on small pools near the river.

Our party was enlarged by the addition of two men who were anxious for some river experience. One was our younger brother, Ernest. We agreed to take him as far as the Ba.s.s Trail, twenty-five miles below, where he could get out on top and return to our home. The other was a young man named Bert Lauzon, who wanted to make the entire trip, and we were glad to have him. Lauzon, although but 24 years old, had been a quartz miner and mining engineer for some years. Coming from the mountains of Colorado, he had travelled over most of the Western states, and a considerable part of Mexico, in his expeditions. There was no question in our minds about Lauzon. He was the man we needed.

To offset the weight of an extra man for each boat, our supplies were cut to the minimum, arrangements having been made with W.W. Ba.s.s--the proprietor of the Ba.s.s Camps and of the Mystic Springs Trail--to have some provisions packed in over his trail. What provisions we took ourselves were packed down on two mules, and anything we could spare from our boats was packed out on the same animals. As we were about ready to leave a friendly miner said: "You can't hook fish in the Colorado in the winter, they won't bite nohow. You'd better take a couple of sticks of my giant-powder along. That will help you get 'em, and it may keep you from starving." Under the circ.u.mstances it seemed like a wise precaution and we took his giant-powder, as he had suggested.

The river had fallen two feet below the stage on which we quit a month before. A scale of foot-marks on a rock wall rising from the river showed that the water twenty-seven feet deep at that spot. No measurement was made in the middle of the river channel. The current here between two small rapids flows at five and three-fourths miles per hour. The width of the stream is close to 250 feet. The high-water mark here is forty-five feet above the low-water stage, then the river spreads to five hundred feet in width, running with a swiftness and strength of current and whirlpool that is tremendous. The highest authentic measurement in a narrow channel, of which we know, is one made by Julius F. Stone in Marble Canyon. He recorded one spot where the high-water mark was 115 feet above the low-water mark. These figures might look large at first, but if they are compared with some of the floods on the Ohio River, for instance, and that stream were boxed in a two hundred foot channel the difference would not be great, we imagine.

One of the young men who greeted us when we landed came down with a companion to see us embark. On the plateau 1300 feet above, looking like small insects against the sky-line, was a trail party, equally interested. They did not stand on the point usually visited by such parties but had gone to a point about a mile to the west, where they had a good view of a short, rough rapid, the little rapid below the trail, while it was no place that one would care to swim in, had no comparison with this other rapid in violence. We had promised the party that we would run this rapid that afternoon, so we spent little time in packing systematically, but hurriedly threw the stuff in and embarked. Less than an hour later we had made the two-mile run and the dash through the short rapid, to the entire satisfaction of all concerned.

We camped a short distance below the rapid, just opposite a grave of a man whose skeleton had been found halfway up the granite, five years before. Judging by his clothes and hob-nailed shoes he was a prospector. He was lying in a natural position, with his head resting on a rock. An overcoat was b.u.t.toned tightly about him. No large bones were broken, but he might have had a fall and been injured internally.

More likely he became sick and died. The small bones of the hands and feet had been taken away by field-mice, and no doubt the turkey-buzzards had stripped the flesh. His pockets contained Los Angeles newspapers of 1900; he was found in 1906. The pockets also contained a pipe and a pocket-knife, but nothing by which he could be identified. The coroner's jury--of which my brother was a member--buried him where he was found, covering the body with rocks, for there was no earth.

Such finds are not unusual in this rugged country. These prospectors seldom say where they are going, no track is kept of their movements, and unless something about their clothes tells who they are, their ident.i.ty is seldom established. The proximity of this grave made us wonder how many more such unburied bodies there were along this river.

We thought too of our friend Smith, back in Cataract Canyon, and wondered if we would hear from him again.

Our helpers got a lot of experience in motion-picture making the next day, while we ran our boats through a number of good, strong rapids, well known locally as the Salt Creek Rapid, Granite Falls or Monument Rapid, the Hermit, the Bouchere, and others. This was all new to the boys, and provided some thrilling entertainment for them. When a difficult pa.s.sage was safely made Bert would wave his hat and yell "Hoo" in a deep, long call that would carry above the roar of the rapids, then he and Ernest would follow along the sh.o.r.e with their cameras, as these rapids all had a sh.o.r.e on one side or the other. The sun shone on the river this day, and we congratulated ourselves on having made the most of our opportunities.

In our first rapid the next morning, we had to carry our pa.s.sengers whether we wanted to or not. There was no sh.o.r.e on either side. In such plunges they would lie down on the deck of the boat behind the oarsman, holding to the raised bulkhead, ducking their heads when an oncoming wave prepared to break over them. Then they would shake themselves as a water-spaniel does, and Bert with a grin would say, "Young fellows, business is picking up!"

Ernest agreed, too, that he had never seen anything in Pittsburg that quite equalled it. If the rapid was not bad, they sat upright on the deck, but this made the boats top-heavy, and as much of the oarsman's work depended on swinging his weight from side to side, it was important that no mistake should be made about this distribution of weight. Often the bottom of a boat would show above the water as it listed to one side. At such a time a person sitting on the raised deck might get thrown overboard.

Before starting on this last trip we had thought it would be only right to give our younger brother a ride in a rapid that would be sure to give him a good ducking, as his experience was going to be short.

But the water and the wind, especially in the shadows, was so very cold that we gave this plan up, and avoided the waves as much as possible. He got a ducking this morning, however, in a place where we least expected it. It was not a rapid, just smooth, very swift water, while close to the right sh.o.r.e there was one submerged rock with a foot of water shooting over it, in such a way that it made a "reverse whirl" as they are called in Alaska--water rolling back upstream, and from all sides as well, to fill the vacuum just below the rock. This one was about twelve feet across; the water disappeared as though it was being poured down a manhole.

The least care, or caution, would have taken me clear this place; but the smooth water was so deceptive, and was so much stronger than I had judged it to be, that I found myself caught sideways to the current, hemmed in with waves on all sides of the boat, knocked back and forth, and resisted in all my efforts to pull clear. The boat was gradually filling with the splas.h.i.+ng water. Ernest was lying on the deck, hanging on like grim death, slipping off, first on one side, then on the other, and wondering what was going to happen. So was I. To be held up in the middle of a swift stream was a new experience, and I was not proud of it. The others pa.s.sed as soon as they saw what had happened, and were waiting in an eddy below. Perhaps we were there only one minute, but it seemed like five. I helped Ernest into the c.o.c.kpit. About that time the boat filled with splas.h.i.+ng water and sunk low, the stream poured over the rock and into the boat, and she upset instantly.

Ernest had on two life-preservers, and came up about thirty feet below, swimming very well considering that he was weighted with heavy clothes and high-topped shoes. The boys pulled him in before he was carried against a threatening wall. Meanwhile, I held to the boat, which was forced out as soon as she was overturned, and climbed on top, or rather on the bottom. I was trying to make the best of things and was giving a cheer when some one said, "There goes your hatch cover and you've lost the motion-picture camera."

Perhaps I had. My cheering ceased. The camera had been hurriedly shoved down in the hatch a few minutes before.

On being towed to sh.o.r.e, however, we found the camera had not fallen out. It had been shoved to the side less than one inch, but that little bit had saved it. It was filled with water, though, and all the pictures were on the unfinished roll in the camera, and were ruined.

We had been in the ice-cold water long enough to lose that glow which comes after a quick immersion and were chilled through; but what bothered me more than anything else was the fact that I had been caught in such a trap after successfully running the bad rapids above.

We made a short run after that so as to get out of sight of the deceptive place, then proceeded to dry out. The ruined film came in handy for kindling our camp-fire.

We were now in the narrowest part of the upper portion of the Grand Canyon, the distance from rim to rim at one point being close to six miles. The width at Bright Angel varied from eight to fourteen miles.

The peaks rising from the plateau, often as high as the canyon walls, and with flat tops a mile or more in width, made the canyon even narrower, so that at times we were in canyons close to a mile in depth, and little over four miles across at the tops.

In this section of the granite there were few places where one could climb out. Nearly all the lateral canyons ended quite a distance above the river, then fell sheer; the lower parts of the walls were quite often smooth-surfaced, where they were polished by the sands in the stream. The black granite in such cases resembled huge deposits of anthracite coal. Sections of the granite often projected out of the water as islands, with the softer rock washed away, the granite being curiously carved by whirling rocks and the emery-like sands. Holes three and four feet deep were worn by small whirling rocks, and grooves were worn at one place by growing willows working back and forth in the water, the sand, strange to say, having less effect on the limbs than it had on the hard rocks.

About noon of the day following this upset we reached the end of the Ba.s.s Trail and another cable crossing, about sixty feet above the water. Three men were waiting for us, and gave a call when we rowed in sight of their camp. One was Lauzon's brother, another was Cecil Dodd, a cowboy who looked after Ba.s.s' stock, and the breaking of his horses, the third was John Norberg, an "old timer" and an old friend as well, engaged at that time in working some asbestos and copper claims.

The granite was broken down at this point, and another small deposit of algonkian was found here. There were intrusions, faults, and displacements both in these formations and in the layers above. These fractures exposed mineral seams and deposits of copper and asbestos on both sides of the river, some of which Ba.s.s had opened up and located, waiting for the day when there would be better transportation facilities than his burros afforded.

This was not our first visit to this section. On other occasions we had descended by the Mystic Spring (or Ba.s.s) Trail, on the south side, crossed on the tramway and were taken by Ba.s.s over some of his many trails, on the north side. We had visited the asbestos claims, where the edge of a blanket formation of the rock known as serpentine, containing the asbestos, lay exposed to view, twisting around the head of narrow canyons, and under beetling cliffs. We went halfway up the north rim trail, through s.h.i.+numo and White canyons, our objective point on these trips being a narrow box canyon which contained a large boulder, rolled from the walls above, and wedged in the flume-like gorge far above our heads. This trail continues up to the top, going over the narrow neck which connects Powell's Plateau--a segregated section of thickly wooded surface several miles in extent--with the main extent of the Kaibab Plateau.

Ernest, though slightly affected with tonsillitis, was loath to leave us here. It was zero weather on top, we were told, and it looked it.

The walls and peaks were white with snow. He would not have an easy trip. The drifted snow was only broken by the one party that we found at the river, and quite likely it would be very late when he arrived at the ranch. John went up with him a few miles to get a horse for the ride home the next day. Ernest took with him a few hurriedly written letters and the exposed plates. The film we were going to save was lost in the upset.

On inspecting the provisions which were packed in here we found the grocers had s.h.i.+pped the order short, omitting, besides other necessities, some canned baked beans, on which we depended a great deal. This meant one of two things. We would have to make a quicker run than we had planned on, or would have to get out of the canyon at one of the two places where such an exit could easily be made.

The M. P. as our motion-picture camera was called--and which was re-christened but not abbreviated by Bert, as "The Member of Parliament"--had to be cleaned before we could proceed. It took all this day, and much of the next, to get the moisture and sand out of the delicate mechanism, and have it running smoothly again. After it was once more in good condition Emery announced that he wanted to work out a few scenes of an uncompleted "movie-drama." The action was snappy. The plot was brief, but harmonized well with the setting, and the "props." Dodd, who was a big Texan, was cast for the role of horse thief and bad man in general. Bert's brother, Morris Lauzon, was the deputy sheriff, and had a star cut from the top of a tomato can to prove it. John was to be a prospector. He would need little rehearsing for this part. In addition, he had not been out where he could have the services of a barber for six months past, which was all the better. John had a kind, quiet, easy-going way that made friends for him on sight. He was not consulted about the part he was to play, but we counted on his good nature and he was cast for the part. Emery, who was cast for the part of a mining engineer, arrived on the scene in his boat, after rounding the bend above the camp, tied up and climbed out over the cliffs to view the surrounding country.

The hidden desperado, knowing that he was being hunted, stole the boat with its contents, and made his escape. The returning engineer arrived just in time to see his boat in the middle of the stream, and a levelled rifle halted him until the boat was hidden around the bend.

At that moment the officer joined him, and a hurried consultation was held. Then the other boat, which had been separated from its companion, pulled into sight, and I was hailed by the men on sh.o.r.e.

They came aboard and we gave chase. Could anything be better? The thief naturally thought he was safe, as he had not seen the second boat! After going over a few rapids, he saw a fire up in the cliffs, on the opposite side of the river. He landed, and climbed up to the camp where John was at work. John shared his camp fare with him, and directed him to a hidden trail. The pursuers, on finding the abandoned boat, quietly followed the trail, and surprised Dodd in John's camp.

He was disarmed and sent across the river in the tramway, accompanied by the deputy, and was punished as he richly deserved to be.

This was the scenario. Bert handled the camera. Emery was the playwright, director, and producer. All rights reserved.

Everything worked beautifully. The film did not get balled up in the cogs, as sometimes happened. The light was good. Belasco himself could not have improved on the stage-setting. The trail led over the wildest, and most picturesque places imaginable. Dodd made a splendid desperado, and acted as if he had done nothing but steal horses and dodge the officers all his life. A pile of driftwood fifty feet high and with a tunnel underneath made a splendid hiding place for him while the first boat was being tied. Being a cowpuncher, it may be that he did not handle the oars as well as an experienced riverman, but any rapid could be used for an insert. The deputy, though youthful, was determined and never lost sight of the trail. The engineer acted his part well and registered surprise and anger, when he found how he had been tricked. John, who had returned, humoured us, and dug nuggets of gold out of limestone rocks, where no one would have thought of looking for them. The fact that the tramway scene was made before any of the others did not matter. We could play our last act first if we wanted to. All we had to do was to cut the film and fasten it on to the end. Emery was justly proud of his first efforts as a producer. We were sorry this film had not been sent out with Ernest.

This thrilling drama will not be released in the near future. One day later we found that a drop of water had worked into the lens cell at the last upset. This fogged the lens. We focussed with a scale and had overlooked the lens when cleaning the camera. Nothing but a very faint outline showed on the film. We had all the film we needed for a week after this, for kindling our fires.

CHAPTER XXI

WHAT CHRISTMAS EVE BROUGHT

In recording our various mishaps and upsets in these pages, it may seem to the reader as if I have given undue prominence to the part I took in them. If so, it has not been from choice, but because they happened in that way. No doubt a great deal of my trouble was due to carelessness. After I had learned to row my boat fairly well I sometimes took chances that proved to be anything but advisable, depending a good deal on luck, and luck was not always with me. My brother was less hasty in making his decisions, and was more careful in his movements, with the result that his boat had few marks of any kind, and he had been more fortunate than I with the rapids.