We halted at noon beside the Nancoweep Valley.  A wide tributary heading many miles back in the plateau the right, with a ramified series of canyons running into it, and with great expanses of sage-covered flats between.  Deer tracks were found on these flats, deer which came down from the forest of the Buckskin Mountains.  This was the point selected by Major Powell for the construction of a trail when he returned from his voyage of exploration to study the geology of this section.  The trail, although neglected for many years, is still used by prospectors from Kanab, Utah, who make a yearly trip into the canyons to do some work on a mineral ledge a few miles below here.

What a glorious, exhilarating run we had that day!  From here to the end of Marble Canyon the rapids were almost continuous, with few violent drops and seldom broken by the usual quiet pools.  It was the finest kind of water for fast travelling, and we made the most of it.  The only previous run we had made that could in any way compare with it was in Whirlpool and Split Mountain canyons, when the high water was on.  As we travelled, occasional glimpses were had of familiar places on Greenland Point—­that thirty-mile peninsula of the Kaibab Plateau extending between Marble Canyon and the Grand Canyon—­where we had gone deer-hunting, or on photographic expeditions with Rust.

Another valley from the right was passed, then a peak rose before us close to the river, with its flat top rising to a height equal to the south wall.  This was Chuar Butte.  Once more we were in a narrow canyon, narrowing by this peak, but a canyon just the same.  Soon we were below a wall we once had photographed from the mouth of the Little Colorado; then the stream itself came into view and we were soon anchored beside it.  This was the beginning of the Grand Canyon.

CHAPTER XIX

SIGNALLING OUR CANYON HOME

How long we had waited for this view!  How many memories it recalled—­and how different it seemed to our previous visit there!  Then, the high water was on, and the turquoise-tinted mineral water of the Colorado Chiquito was backed up by the turbid flood waters of the Rio Colorado, forty feet or more above the present level.  Now it was a rapid stream, throwing itself with wild abandon over the rocks and into the Colorado.  There was the same deserted stone hut, built by a French prospector, many years before, and a plough that he had packed in over a thirty-mile trail—­the most difficult one in all this rugged region!  There was the little grass-plot where we pastured the burro, while we made a fifteen-mile walk up the bed of this narrow canyon!  What a hard, hot journey it had been!  A year and a half ago we sat on that rock, and talked of the day when we should come through here in boats!  Even then we talked of building a raft, and of loading the burro on it for a spin on the flood waters.  Lucky for us and for the burro that we didn’t!  We understand the temper of these waters now.