There had been many applicants; some of them from distant parts of the country.  One by one they were sifted out.  At length we decided on one man; but later he withdrew.  We turned elsewhere, but these applications were withdrawn, until there remained but a single letter, from a young man in San Francisco.  He seemed in every way qualified.  We wrote accepting his application, but while waiting to hear from us a civil service position had been offered and accepted.  “He was sorry”; and so were we, for his references proved that he was a capable man.  Later he wrote that he had secured a substitute.  We replied on the instant, by wiring money for transportation, with instructions for the new man to report at once at Green River.  We took very much for granted, having confidence in our friends’ sincerity and knowledge of just what was required.

The time had passed, two days before; but—­no sign of our man!  We wrote, we telegraphed, we walked back and forth to every train; but still he did not come.  Had this man, too, failed us?

Then “Jimmy” came—­just the night before we were to leave.  And never was a man more heartily welcome!

With James Fagen of San Francisco our party was complete.  He was an Irish-American, aged 22 years, a strong, active, and willing chap.  To be sure, he was younger, and not so experienced at “roughing it” as we had hoped.  But his good qualities, we were sure, would make up for what was lacking.

Evening found us encamped a half mile below the town, the county bridge.  Our preparations were finished—­even to the final purchase of odds and ends; with ammunition for shot-gun and rifle.  We threw our sleeping-bags on the dry ground close to the river’s edge, and, all our anxieties gone, we turned our faces to the stars and slept.

At daybreak we were aroused by the thunder of hoofs on the bridge above us, and the shouts of cowboys driving a large herd of half-broken horses.  We tumbled into our clothes, splashed our faces with ice-cold water from the river, and hurried over to the hotel for a last breakfast.

Then we sat down—­in the little hotel at Green River City—­as others had done before, to write last messages to those who were nearest and dearest to us.  A telegram to our parents in an Eastern city; and another to Emery’s wife and little girl, at Bright Angel, more than eight hundred miles down this self-same river—­these, somehow, took longer to write than the letters themselves.  But whatever we may have felt, we finished this final correspondence in silence, and hurried back to the river.

Something of a crowd had gathered on the bridge to wish us bon voyage.  Shouting up to them our thanks for their hospitality, and telling them to “look pleasant,” we focussed the motion-picture camera on them, Emery turning the crank, as the boat swung out into the current.

So began our journey, on Friday, September the 8th, 1911, at 9.30 A.M., as entered in my journal.