We looked out of the window the next morning, on a landscape that was novel, yet somehow familiar.  The river, a quarter of a mile away, very clear and unruffled under its groves of cottonwood, wound through low barren hills, as unlike as could be to the cliffs and chasms we knew so well.  But the colours—­gray, red, and umber, just as Moran has painted them—­reassured us.  We seemed not so far from home, after all.

It was Wyoming weather, though; clear and cold, after a windy night.  When, after breakfast, we went down to the river, we found that a little ice had formed along the margin.

The days of final preparation passed quickly—­with unpacking of innumerable boxes and bundles, checking off each article against our lists; and with a long and careful overhauling of our photographic outfit.

This last was a most important task, for the success of our expedition depended on our success as photographers.  We could not hope to add anything of importance to the scientific and topographic knowledge of the canyons already existing:  and merely to come out alive at the other end did not make a strong appeal to our vanity.  We were there as scenic photographers in love with their work, and determined to reproduce the marvels of the Colorado’s canyons, as far as we could do it.

In addition to three film cameras we had 8 x 10 and 5 x 7 plate cameras; a plentiful supply of plates and films; a large cloth dark-room; and whatever chemicals we should need for tests.  Most important of all, we had brought a motion-picture camera.  We had no real assurance that so delicate an apparatus, always difficult to use and regulate, could even survive the journey—­much less, in such inexperienced hands as ours, reproduce its wonders.  But this, nevertheless, was our secret hope, hardly admitted to our most intimate friends—­that we could bring out a record of the Colorado as it is, a live thing, armed as it were with teeth, ready to crush and devour.

There was shopping to do; for the purchases of provisions, with a few exceptions, had been left to the last.  There were callers, too—­an embarrassing number of them.  We had camped on a small island near the town, not knowing when we did so that it had recently been put aside for a public park.  The whole of Green River City, it seemed, had learned of our project, and came to inspect, or advise, or jeer at us.  The kindest of them wished us well; the other sort told us “it would serve us right”; but not one of our callers had any encouragement to offer.  Many were the stories of disaster and death with which they entertained us.  One story in particular, as it seems never to have reached print—­though unquestionably true—­ought to be set down here.