Beyond getting our flour wet on the outside, we suffered very little loss to our cargo.  We placed the two flour sacks beside the fires each evening, until the wet flour dried to a crust.  We continued to use out of the centre of the sacks as though nothing had ever happened.

Bert and I each had a little cough the next morning, but it disappeared by noon.  Beyond that, we suffered no great inconvenience from our enforced bath.  Sleeping in the open, with plenty of healthful exercise, kept us physically fit.

The cold air and the cold water did not seem to bother the others, but I could not get comfortably warm during this cold snap.  Added to this, it took me some time to get over my scare, and I could see all kinds of danger, in rapids, where Emery could see none.  I insisted on untying the photographic cases from the boats, and carrying them around a number of rapids before we ran them.  It is hardly necessary to say that no upset occurred in these rapids.

Then came a cold day, with a raw wind sweeping up the river.  A coating of ice covered the boats and the oars.  We had turned directly to the north along the base of Powell’s plateau, and were nearing the end of a second granite gorge, with violent rapids and jagged rocks.  Emery made the remark that he had not had a swim for some time.  In a half-hour we came to a rapid with two twelve-foot waves in the centre of the stream, with a projecting point above that would have to be passed, before we could pull out of the swift-running centre.  Emery got his swim there.  I was just behind and was more fortunate.  I never saw anything more quickly done.  Before the boat was fully overturned he swung an oar, so that it stuck out at an angle from the side of the boat, and used the oar for a step; an instant later he had cut the oar loose, and steered toward the shore.  Bert threw him a rope from the shore, and he was pulled in.  He was wearing a thin rubber coat fitting tightly about his wrists, tied about his neck, and belted at the waist.  This protected him so thoroughly that he was only wet from the waist down.

If we were a little inclined to be proud of our record above Bright Angel we had forgotten all about it by this time.  We were scarcely more than sixty miles from home and had experienced three upsets and a smashed boat, all in one week.

Just at the end of the second granite section we made our first portage since leaving Bright Angel.  Bert and I worked on the boats, while Emery cooked the evening meal.

Hot rice soup, flavoured with a can of prepared meat, was easily and quickly prepared, and formed one of the usual dishes at these meals.  It contained a lot of nutriment, and the rice took up but little space in the boats.  Sometimes the meat was omitted, and raisins were substituted.  Prepared baked beans were a staple dish, but were not in our supply on this last part of the trip.  We often made “hot cakes” twice a day; an excuse for eating a great