THE GRAND RIVER IS ON
THE RIGHT. NOTE BOATS.]
CHAPTER XIII
A COMPANION VOYAGER
THURSDAY morning, October the 26th, found Emery feeling very poorly,
but insisting on going ahead with our day's work, so Camp No. 34 was
soon behind us. We were embarked on a new stream, flowing
west-southwest, with a body of water ten times the size of that which
we had found in the upper canyons of the Green. Our sixteen-foot boats
looked quite small when compared with the united currents of the Green
and the Grand rivers. The Colorado River must have been about 350 feet
wide here just below the junction, with a three-mile current, and
possibly twenty-five feet deep, although this is only a guess. The
Grand River appeared to be the higher of the two streams, and had a
decidedly red colour, as though a recent storm was being carried down
its gorges; while the colour of the Green was more of a coffee
colour--coffee with a little cream in it.
A fourth of a mile below the junction the two currents began to mix,
with a great ado about it, with small whirlpools and swift eddies, and
sudden outbursts from beneath as though a strangled current was
struggling to escape from the weight which overpowered it. The boats
were twisted this way and that, and hard rowing was necessary to carry
us down to the steadied current, and to the first rapid, which we
could hear when yet far above it.
Soon we were running rapids again, and getting a lot of sport out of
it.
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