Why run the rapid,
and get a moving picture as it was being done. Then we could show Rust
how well we had learned our lesson! So I thought as we returned to the
buildings near the dredge, but said nothing of what was in my mind to
Emery, making the mental reservation that I would see the rapid first
and decide afterwards.
The foreman of the placer mines called us into his office that
evening, and suggested that it might be a good plan to go over our
boats thoroughly before we left, and offered us the privilege of using
their workshop, with all its conveniences, for any needed repairs. He
also let us have a room in one of the buildings for our photographic
work.
This foreman mourned the loss of a friend who had recently been
drowned at the ferry. It seemed that the floods which had preceded us,
especially that part which came down the San Juan River, had been
something tremendous, rising 45 feet at the ferry, where the river was
400 feet wide; and rising much higher in the narrow portions of Glen
Canyon. Great masses of driftwood had floated down, looking almost
like a continuous raft. When the river had subsided somewhat, an
attempt was made to cross with the ferry. The foreman and his friend,
with two others, and a team of horses hitched to a wagon, were on the
ferry. When in midstream it overturned in the swollen current. Three
of the men escaped, the other man and the horses were drowned.
A careful search had been made for the body to a point a few miles
down the river, then the canyon closed in and they could go no
farther.
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