deal of butter and honey, or syrup.  None of these things were luxuries.  They were the best foodstuff we could carry.  We seemed to crave sweet stuff, and used quantities of sugar.  We could carry eggs, when packed in sawdust, without trouble but did not carry many.  We had little meat; what we had was bacon, and prepared meats of the lunch variety.  Cheese was our main substitute for meat.  It was easily carried and kept well.  Dried peaches or apricots were on the bill for nearly every meal, each day’s allowance being cooked the evening before.  We tried several condensed or emergency foods, but discarded them all but one, for various reasons.  The exception was Erbeswurst, a patent dried soup preparation.  Other prepared soups were carried also.  I must not forget the morning cereal.  It was Cream of Wheat, easily prepared; eaten—­not served, perhaps devoured would be a better word—­with sugar and condensed cream, as long as it lasted, then with butter.  Any remainder from breakfast was fried for other meals.  Each evening, we would make some baking-powder biscuit in a frying-pan.  A Dutch oven is better, but had too much weight.  The appellation for such bread is “flapjack” or “dough-god.”  When I did the baking they were fearfully and wonderfully made.  Cocoa, which was nourishing, often took the place of coffee.  In fact our systems craved just what was most needed to build up muscle and create heat.  We found it was useless to try to catch fish after the weather became cold.  The fish would not bite.

On the upper end of our journey we carried no tobacco, as it happened that Jimmy as well as ourselves were not tobacco users.  There were no alcoholic stimulants.  When Bert joined us, a small flask, for medicinal purposes only, was taken along.  The whiskey was scarcely touched at this time.  Bert enjoyed a pipe after his meals, but continued to keep good-natured even when his tobacco got wet, so tobacco was not absolutely necessary to him.

Uninteresting and unromantic these things may be, but they were most important to us.  We were only sorry the supply was not larger.  While we never stinted ourselves, or cut the allowance of food, the amount was growing smaller every day, and it was not a question any more whether we would go out or not, to get provisions, to “rustle” as Bert called it, but where we would go out.  We might go up Cataract Creek or Ha Va Su Creek, as it is sometimes called.  We had been to the mouth of this canyon on foot, so there would be no danger of missing it.  The Ha Va Supai Indians, about two hundred in number, lived in this lateral canyon about seven or eight miles from the river.  An agent and a farmer lived with them, and might be able to sell us some provisions; if not, it would be fifty miles back to our home.  The trail was much more direct than the river.  The great drawback to this course was the fact that Ha Va Su Canyon, sheer-walled, deep, and narrow, contained a number of waterfalls, one of them about 175 feet