A young Indian in
semi-cowboy garb,--not omitting a gorgeous silk handkerchief about his
neck,--jabbered awhile with some grinning squaws, then said in
perfectly understandable English, "He will sell his boat for $18.00.
It is worth $30.00." This was decisive for an Indian. It usually takes
a half-day of bickering to get them to make any kind of a bargain. I
told him I would take it in the morning.
It was a well-constructed boat, almost new, built of inch pine,
flat-bottomed, and otherwise quite similar in shape to the boats my
brother and I had used on our twelve hundred mile journey through the
canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers,--but without the graceful
lines and swells that made those other boats so valuable to us in
rapids. The boat was nearly new and well worth $30.00, as boat prices
went in that town. Why he was willing to sell it for $18.00, or at the
rate of $1.00 a foot, I could not imagine. It was the first bargain an
Indian had ever offered me. But if I paid for it that evening, there
were doubts in my mind if I should find it in the morning, so I
delayed closing the bargain and went back again to inspect the boat.
That evening I inquired among my acquaintances if there was any one
who would care to accompany me. If so I would give them passage to
Yuma, or to the Gulf of California in Mexico, if they wished it. But
no one could go, or those who could, wouldn't. One would have thought
from the stories with which I was regaled, that the rapids of the
Grand Canyon were below Needles, and as for going to the Gulf, it was
suicide.
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