y
hazardous. A boat allowed to get a trifle too far towards this descent
would be treated as the No-Name had been served higher up, and the
expedition could not afford to lose a second boat with its contents. The
water in these rapids beats furiously against the foot of the opposite
vertical cliff, and if a boat in either place should by chance get
too far over towards this right-hand wall it would be dashed to pieces
there, even could it escape the rocks of the main channel. The problem
was how to rescue the men from the island and not destroy another boat
in doing it. Finally, the Emma Dean was brought down, and Jack Sumner
undertook to reach the island in her. Keeping well up stream, as near
the first fall as he could, a few bold strokes enabled him to land near
the lower end. Then, all together, they pulled the boat to the very
head of the island and beyond that as far as they could stand up in
the water. Here one man sat on a rock and held the boat steady till the
others were in perfect readiness to pull with all their power, when he
gave a shove and, clinging on, climbed in while the oarsmen put their
muscle to the test. The shore was safely attained, and Powell writes:
"We are as glad to shake hands with them as though they had been on a
voyage around the world, and wrecked on a distant coast." This disaster
was most serious, even though the men were saved, for, besides the loss
of the craft itself, all the barometers by some miscalculation were on
the No-Name. They were able to make camp on the shore and survey the
situation. "No sleep comes to me in all those dark hours," writes
Powell. To meet with such a reverse at so early a stage was very
discouraging, but Powell had counted on disaster, and, as he was never
given to repining, as soon as breakfast was eaten the next morning he
cast about for a way to rescue the barometers which were in a part of
the wreck that had lodged among some rocks a half mile below. Sumner and
Dunn volunteered to try to reach the place with the small boat, and they
succeeded. When they returned, a loud cheer went up from those on shore,
and Powell was much impressed with this exhibition of deep interest in
the safety of the scientific instruments, but he soon discovered that
the cheer was in celebration of the rescue of a three-gallon keg of
whiskey that had been smuggled along without his knowledge and happened
to be on the ill-fated No-Name.

It required a good deal of work to comp