too far back for instant death, but I followed it up and found it down and helpless, and soon secured it.  I hauled this one down the mountain, and the other boys had the two others secure by this time.  McMahon was so elated at my success that he said:  “Manley, if I could shoot as you do I would never want any better business.”  And the other fellows said they guessed we were having better luck with one gun than with six, so we had a merry time after all.  These animals were of a bluish color, with hair much finer than deer, and resembled a goat more than a sheep.  These three were all females and their horns were quite straight, not curved like the big males.  We cut the meat from the bones and broke them up, making a fine soup which tasted pretty good.  They were in pretty good order, and the meat like very good mutton.

We kept pushing on down the river.  The rapids were still dangerous in many places, but not so frequent nor so bad as the part we had gone over, and we could see that the river gradually grew smoother as we progressed.

After a day or two we began to get out of the canons, but the mountains and hills on each side were barren and of a pale yellow caste, with no chance for us to climb up and take a look to see if there were any chances for us further along.  We had now been obliged to follow the canon for many miles, for the only way to get out was to get out endwise, climbing the banks being utterly out of the question.  But these mountains soon came to an end, and there was some cottonwood and willows on the bank of the river, which was now so smooth we could ride along without the continual loading and unloading we had been forced to practice for so long.  We had begun to get a little desperate at the lack of game, but the new valley, which grew wider all the time, gave us hope again, if it was quite barren everywhere except back of the willow trees.

We were floating along very silently one day, for none of us felt very much in the mood for talking, when we heard a distant sound which we thought was very much like the firing of a gun.  We kept still, and in a short time a similar sound was heard, plainer and evidently some ways down the stream.  Again and again we heard it, and decided that it must be a gun shot, and yet we were puzzled to know how it could be.  We were pretty sure there were no white people ahead of us, and we did not suppose the Indians in this far-off land had any firearms.  It might be barely possible that we were coming now to some wagon train taking a southern course, for we had never heard that there were any settlements in this direction and the barren country would preclude any such thing, as we viewed it now.  If it was a hostile band we could not do much with a rifle and a shot gun toward defending ourselves or taking the aggressive.  Some of the boys spoke of our scalps ornamenting a spear handle, and indulged in such like cheerful talk which comforted us wonderfully.