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 associated with the Grand Canyon.  It was his painting which hangs in the capital at Washington 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 illustrated Major Powell’s government report; making his sketches on wood from photographs this expedition had taken with the old-fashioned 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.