Glen Canyon.
Photograph by E. O. Beaman, 1871.
Leaving the Music Temple, which seemed to us a sort of mausoleum to the three men who had marked it with their names, we soon arrived at a pretty rapid with a clear chute. It was not large but it was the only real one we had seen in this canyon and we dashed through it with pleasure. Just below we halted to look admiringly up at Navajo Mountain which now loomed beside us on the left to an altitude of 10,416 feet above sea level or more than 7100 feet above our position, as was later determined. The Major contemplated stopping long enough for a climb to the top but on appealing to Andy for information as to the state of the supplies he found we were near the last crust and he decided that we had better pull on as steadily as possible towards El Vado. We ran down a considerable distance through some shallows and camped on the left having accomplished about twenty miles in the day towards our goal. Here the remaining food was divided into two portions, one for supper, the other for breakfast in the morning. Though we were running so close to the starvation line we felt no great concern about it. We always had confidence in our ability somehow to get through with success. Andy, particularly, never failed in his optimism. Generally he took no interest in the nature of a rapid, lying half asleep while the others examined the place, and entirely willing to run anything or make a portage or even swim; he cared not. "Nothing ever happens to any outfit I belong to," he would declare shifting to an easier position, "Let her go!" and now so far as Andy's attitude was concerned we might have possessed unlimited rations. Jack lightened the situation yet more with his jolly songs and humorous expressions and no one viewing that camp would have thought the ten men had before them a possibility of several days without food, except what they might kill in the barren country, and perhaps a walk from El Vado over an unknown trail about one hundred miles out to Kanab. In the morning, Friday, October 6th, we got away as quickly as we could and pulled down the river hoping that El Vado was not far ahead and feeling somewhat as Escalante must have felt a century before when he was trying to find it. He had the advantage of having horses which could be eaten from time to time. Of course we knew from the position of the San Juan and of Navajo Mountain, that we could reach El Vado in at most two days, but the question was, "would we find any one there with rations?" The Major apparently was unconcerned. He told me a story about a farmer's son in his neighbourhood when himself a boy who had no shoes, no good clothes, no decent hat, but who went to the father and declared he wanted a "buzzum pin," and nothing but a buzzum pin would he have, though his parent called his attention to his lack of other necessaries, one after the other. "No Pa," the boy would repeat "I want a buzzum pin."
Looking down upon Glen Canyon.
Cut through homogeneous sandstone.
Photograph by J. K. Hillers, U. S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
As we rowed along the Major sang softly another of his favourites: