The entire trip through this pretty valley was full of interest.  We were hailed from the shore by some of the hay ranchers, it being a novel sight to them to see a river expedition.  At one or two of these places we asked the reason for the deserted ranches above, and were given evasive answers.  Finally we were told that cattle rustlers from the mountains made it so hard for the ranchers in the valleys that there was nothing for them to do but get out.  They told us, also, that we were fortunate to get away from Johnson’s ranch with our valuables!  Our former host, we were told, had committed many depredations and had served one term for cattle stealing.  Officers, disguised as prospectors, had taken employment with him and helped him kill and skin some cattle; the skins, with their telltale brands, having been partially burned and buried.  On this evidence he was afterwards convicted.

Our cool welcome by the Johnsons, their suspicions of us, the sinister arsenal of guns and pistols, all was explained!  Quite likely some of these weapons had been trained against us by the trappers on the chance that we were either officers of the law, or competitors in the horse-stealing industry.  For that matter we were actually guilty of the latter count, for come to think of it, we ourselves had helped them steal eight horses and a colt!

The entire trip through this pretty valley was full of interest.  It was all so different from anything seen above.  There were great bottoms that gave evidence of having recently been overflooded, though now covered with cottonwood trees, gorgeous in their autumn foliage.  We had often wondered where all the driftwood that floated down the Colorado came from; but after seeing those unnumbered acres of cottonwoods we ceased to wonder.

There were many beaver slides on the banks; and in places, numberless trees had been felled by these industrious animals.  On one or two occasions we narrowly escaped splitting the sides of our boats on snags of trees which the beavers had buried in the bottom of the stream.  We saw no beaver dams on the river; they were not necessary, for deep, quiet pools existed everywhere in Brown’s Park.  We saw two beavers in this section.  One of these rose, porpoise-like, to the top of the water, stared at us a moment, then brought his tail down with a resounding smack on the top of the water, and disappeared, to enter his home by the subterranean route, no doubt.  The river was gradually losing its clear colour, for the sand-bars were beginning to “work out,” or break, making the water quite roily.  In some sections of Brown’s Park we grounded on these sand-bars, making it necessary for us to get out into the water, pushing and pulling on the boats until deeper water was reached.  Sometimes the deep water came when least expected, the sand-bars having a disconcerting way of dropping off abruptly on the downstream side.  Jimmy stepped off the edge of one of these hidden ledges while working with a boat and was for some time in no condition to appreciate our ill-concealed mirth.