l, only a thin slice of bacon, a chunk of bread about the size
of one's fist, and all the coffee he desired. At long intervals a pot
of Andy's rare bean-soup was added to the feast. It was necessary,
therefore, to push on with all haste, or we would be starving. The
Canonita was consequently taken out and "cached" under a huge rock which
had fallen against the cliff, forming a natural house. Filling her with
sand to keep her from "drying" to pieces we left her, feeling sure the
party which was to come after her the next spring would find her safe.
She was forty feet above low water. We now went ahead with good speed,
leaving as much work as possible for the prospective Canonita party
to perform. All through Glen Canyon we found evidences of Puebloan
occupation: house ruins, storage caves, etc. The river was tame,
though the walls, about one thousand to sixteen hundred feet high,
were beautiful, and often, in places, vertical. The low stage of water
rendered progress somewhat difficult at times, but nevertheless we
made fairly good time and on the 5th of October passed the San Juan, a
shallow stream at this season, entering through a wide canyon of about
the same depth as that of the Colorado, that is, about twelve hundred or
fourteen hundred feet. A short distance below it we stopped at the Music
Temple, where the Rowlands and Dunn had carved their names. Reaching
the vicinity of Navajo Mountain, Powell thought of climbing it, but an
inquiry as to the state of the larder received from Andy the unpleasant
information that we were down to the last of the supplies; two or three
more scant meals would exhaust everything edible in the boats. So no
halt was made. On the contrary, the oars were plied more vigorously, and
on the 6th we saw a burned spot in the bushes on the right,--there were
alluvial bottoms in the bends,--and though this burned spot was not
food, it was an indication that there were human beings about; we hoped
it indicated also our near approach to the Crossing of the Fathers.
Horses and men had recently been there. Noon came and the surroundings
were as silent, unbroken, untrodden as they had been anywhere above
the burned spot. Though there was little reason for it, we halted for
a dinner camp, and Andy brought out a few last scraps for us to devour.
Hillers threw in a line baited with a small bit of bacon and pulled out
a fish, then a second and several. It was the miracle of the loaves and
fishes over agai