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 buttoned 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 identity 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 passage 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 shore with their cameras, as these rapids all had a shore 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 passengers whether we wanted to or not.  There was no shore 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.