That trip was made, and proved to be quite a blank, for the brig was never got up to the falls.
The next year, though, the party started with high hopes, for the weather was magnificent, and they reached the falls; but not without finding that the course of the river had been a good deal altered by two seasons of tremendous floods.
But there were the stupendous falls and one morning, leaving the brig snugly anchored in a bay of the river to wait for her golden freight, three boats, with the men well armed, started for their journey up stream.
The course of the river below the falls had been greatly altered, but that was as nothing to the complete change in the network of rivers higher up.
Let it suffice to say that they rowed and sailed for days which grew into weeks, and then to months, from river into river, and then in and out of what was a great watery puzzle; but the cañon with its golden city might have sunk right out of sight, for in spite of every effort the party were driven back at last when the torrential rains set in.
The next year the captain said he had had enough of it, and Brace and his brother declined to go, the latter saying that the proverb was right: “You can buy gold too dearly.”
Briscoe then declared that he would freight another brig and go by himself.
He went, and, at the end of six months, returned, visited London, and called upon his old companion.