The beach was a half-mile wide, covered with mud and sloughs.  There was no high shore.  But an examination showed that the tide ran back to the cliffs.  One of us had to stay with the boat.  Telling Phillipps to get what sleep he could, I sat in the boat, and allowed the small breakers which fox-chased each other to beat it in as the tide rose.

An arctic explorer has said that having an adventure means that something unexpected or unforeseen has happened; that some one has been incompetent.  I had the satisfaction of knowing that the fault of this adventure, if such it could be called, was mine.  Here we were, at our goal in Mexico, supposed to be a hostile land, with scant provisions for one day.  It was a hundred miles along the line of cliffs, back to Yuma.  So far, we had failed to find the ranch.  It was not likely that it was around the point of rocks.  We knew now that the Colorado channel was fifteen miles from the mouth of the river, and was not a slough as we had supposed.  Doubtless the ranch was up there.  Our best plan was to return to the head of the tide, going up the Colorado, then if we did not find the ranch we would abandon the boat, snare some birds, keep out of the scorching heat, and travel in the morning and evening.  Two active men should be able to do that without difficulty.

So the hours passed, with the breakers driving the boat toward the line of cliffs.  When it had reached its highest point, I pulled into a slough and tied up, then woke Al as we had agreed.  While I slept, he climbed the cliffs to have a last look.  An hour after daybreak he returned.  Nothing but rock and desert could be seen.  We dragged the boat down in the slime of the slough until we caught the falling tide.  Then Al rigged up his sail.  With the rising sun a light breeze blew in from the Gulf.  Here was our opportunity.  Slowly we went up against the falling tide.  Then as the breeze failed, the tide returned.  Fifty feet away a six foot black sea bass floated; his rounded back lifted above the water.  With the approach of the boat he was gone.  The sharks were seen again.

Two hours later we had entered the mouth of the river carried by the rising tide.  Several miles were left behind.  Another breeze came up as the tide failed, and the sail was rigged up again.  Things were coming our way at last.  Al knew how to handle a boat.  Running her in close to the top of the straight falling banks I could leap to the land, take a picture, then run and overtake the boat, and leap on again.

Then the wind shifted, the tide turned, and we tied up, directly opposite the point where we had camped the afternoon before.  It was the hottest day we had seen Whirlwinds, gathering the dust in slender funnels, scurried across the plains.  Mirages of trees bordering shimmering lakes and spreading water such as we had come through below Yuma were to be seen, even out towards the sea.  Then over toward the cliffs where the old Colorado once ran we saw