Often we would be passing along on perfectly smooth water, when suddenly a turmoil would rise all about us as though a geyser had broken out below the surface.  If we happened to be directly over it, the boat would be rocked back and forth for a while; then all would be peaceful again.  This was most often caused by the ledges of sand, anywhere from three to ten feet high breaking down or falling forward as their bases were undermined.  In a single night a bar of this kind will work upstream for a distance of several feet; then the sand will be carried down with the current to lodge again in some quiet pool, and again be carried on as before.  This action gives rise to long lines of regular waves or swells extending for some distance down the stream.  These are usually referred to as sand-waves.  These waves increase in size in high water; and the monotonous thump, thump of the boat’s bottom upon them is anything but pleasant, especially if one is trying to make fast time.

So, with something new at every turn, we pulled lazily through Brown’s Park, shooting at ducks and geese when we came near them, snapping our cameras when a picture presented itself, and observing the animal life along the stream.

We stopped at one hay-ranch close to the Utah-Colorado line and chatted awhile with the workers.  A pleasant-faced woman named Mrs. Chew asked us to deliver a message at a ranch a mile or two below.  Here also was the post-office of Lodore, Colorado, located a short distance above the canyon of the same name.  Mrs. Chew informed us that they had another ranch at the lower end of Lodore Canyon and asked us to look them up when we got through, remarking:  “You may have trouble, you know.  Two of my sons once tried it.  They lost their boat, had to climb out, and nearly starved before they reached home.”

The post-office at the ranch, found as described, without another home in sight, was a welcome sight to us for several reasons.  One reason was that it afforded shelter from a heavy downpour of rain that greeted us as we neared it, and a better reason still was, that it gave us a chance to write and mail some letters to those who would be most anxious to hear from us.

Among the messages we mailed was a picture post-card of Coney Island at night.  In some way this card had slipped between the leaves of a book that I had brought from the East.  I sent it out, addressed to a friend who would understand the joke; writing underneath the picture, “We have an abundance of such scenery here.”  The young woman who had charge of the office looked at the card in amazement.  It was evidently something new to her.  She told us she had never been to the railroad, and that her brother took the mail out on horse-back to Steamboat, Colorado, 140 miles distant.