Emery had not been feeling his best and I advised him to remain on shore while I took the boat.  As we made the change we again observed the boat, bounding through the next rapid, whirling on the tops of the waves as though in the hands of a superhuman juggler.  I managed to overtake her in a whirlpool below the rapid, and came to shore for her captain.  He was nearly exhausted with his efforts; still he insisted on continuing.  A few miles below we saw some ducks, and shot at them with a revolver.  But the ducks flew disdainfully away, and landed in the pool below.

By 4.30 P.M. we were twelve miles below the junction, a very good day’s run considering the kind of water we were travelling on, and the amount of time we spent on the shore.  We had just run our twelfth rapid, and were turning the boats around, when we saw a man back from the shore working over a pile of boxes which he had covered with a piece of canvas.  A boat was tied to the water’s edge.  We called to him, and he answered, but did not seem nearly as much interested in seeing companion travellers as we were, and proceeded with his work.  We landed, and, to save time, introduced ourselves, as there seemed to be a certain aloofness in his manner.  He gave the name of Smith—­with some hesitation, we thought.

Smith was about medium size, but looked tough and wiry; he had a sandy complexion, with light hair and mustache.  He had lost one eye, the other was that light gray colour that is usually associated with indomitable nerve.  He had a shrewd, rather humorous expression, and gave one the impression of being very capable.  Dressed in a neat whipcord suit, wearing light shoes and a carefully tied tie, recently shaved—­a luxury we had denied ourselves, all this time—­he was certainly an interesting character to meet in this out-of-the-way place.  We should judge he was a little over forty years old; but whether prospector, trapper, or explorer it was hard to say.  Some coyote skins, drying on a rock, would give one the impression that he was the second, with a touch of the latter thrown in.  These coyotes were responsible for the tracks we had seen, and had mistaken for dog tracks, but of all the canyons we had seen he was in the last place where we would expect to find a trapper.  The coyotes evidently reached the river gorge through side canyons on the left, where we had seen signs of ancient trails.  Apart from that there was no sign of animal life.  With the last of the wooded canyons, the signs of beaver had disappeared.  There were a few otter tracks, but they are wily fellows, and are seldom trapped.  While there are laws against the trapping of beaver, they seldom prevent the trappers from taking them when they get the chance; they are only a little more wary of strangers; the thought occurred to us that this trapper may have secured some beaver in the open sections above, and mistrusted us for this reason.