Defiance, ready to aid in case of emergency.  After being once through a rapid I found it quite a simple matter to run the second boat, and the knowledge that he would save me in case of an upset greatly lessened any danger that might have existed.  He was too nervous to sleep, and asked me to take a last look at the boats before going to bed.  They were pulled well up on the shore and securely tied, I found, so that it would take a flood to tear them loose.  The rain, which had stopped for a while, began again as I rolled into the blankets; the fire, fed with great cottonwood logs, threw ghostly shadows on the cliffs which towered above us, and sputtered in the rain but refused to be drowned; while the roar of rapids, Nos. 22 and 23 combined, thundered and reverberated from wall to wall, and finally lulled us to sleep.

The rain continued all night, but the weather cleared in the morning.  Emery felt much the same as he had the day before, so we kept the same camp that day.  We took some pictures, and made a few test developments, hanging the dark-room, or tent, inside the other tent for want of a better place to tie to.

Sunday, October the 29th, we remained at the same place, and by evening were both greatly benefited by the rest.  On Monday morning we packed up again, leaving only the moving-picture camera out, and pictured each other, alternately, as the boats made the Plunge over the steep descent in rapid No. 23.  Both boats disappeared from sight on two or three occasions in this rapid and emerged nearly filled with water.

The section just passed is credited with the greatest descent on the rivers, a fall of 75 feet in 3/4 of a mile.  This includes the three rapids:  Nos. 21, 22, and 23.

Proceeding on our way the canyon narrowed, going up almost sheer to a height of 2500 feet or over.  Segregated spires, with castle-like tops, stood out from the upper walls.  The rapids, or cataracts, compared well with those passed above, connected in some instances by swift-rushing water instead of the quiet pools which were usually found between the rapids.  We ran ten rapids this day, but several of these which were counted as one were a series of two or three rapids, which might be one in high water.  All had a shore on one side or the other, but caution was imperative when crossing in the swift water between the rapids.  A mishap here meant destruction.  We figured that we had travelled about ten miles for this day’s run.

The menacing walls continued to go higher with the next day’s travel, until they reached a height of 2700 feet.  The left wall was so sheer that it almost seemed to overhang.  The little vegetation which we had found on the lower slope gradually disappeared as the walls grew steeper, but a few scattered shrubs, sage-brush, and an occasional juniper grew on the rocky sides, or in one or two side canyons which entered from the south.  These side canyons had the appearance of running back for considerable distances, but we did not explore any of them and could tell very little about them from the river.