wagon was out of the
question and the sturdy pack horses themselves could move but slowly.

Jim's first view of the Makon Canyon was of a black rift in a rough
brown sea of sand, with a blue gray sky above. As the little pack train
drew nearer he saw that the walls of the rift were weathered and broken
into fissures and points of seeming impassable roughness. So deep and
so craggy were these walls that the river a half mile below could be
seen only at infrequent intervals. The labor of getting into the crevice
would be quite as difficult, Jim thought, as going through it.

They made camp that night close beside the canyon edge. Early the next
morning the rancher left them and Charlie and Jim prepared to get
themselves and their outfit down over the mighty, bristling walls.
Lowering each other and the packs by ropes, sliding, rolling, jumping,
crawling, it was night before they reached the river's edge, where they
made camp. There was a narrow sandy beach with a cottonwood tree growing
close to the granite wall. Under this they put their air mattresses and
built their fire.

Jim did not like the feeling of nervousness he had in realizing how deep
they were below the desert and how narrow and oppressive were the canyon
walls. He was glad that the strenuous day sent them off to bed and to
sleep as soon as they had finished supper. They were up at dawn.

Charlie's purpose was to work down the river, surveying as he went until
he found a level where the river would flow through a tunnel out onto
the valley. And this level, too, must be at a point where construction
work was possible. The river was incredibly rough and treacherous. From
the first they packed everything in waterproof bags. The canvas canoes
were impractical. The river was full of hidden rock and by the third day
the second canoe was torn to pieces and they were depending on rafts
made from the air mattresses.

After the canoes were gone, they spent practically all the daylight in
the water, swimming or wading and towing or pushing the mattresses. The
water was very cold but they were obliged to work so hard that they
scarcely felt the chill until they made camp at night. Jim discovered
that a transit could be used in a cauldron of water or on a peak of rock
where a slip meant instant death or clinging to steep walls that
threatened rock slide at the misplacing of a pebble.

One arduous task was the locating of a camp at night. The second night
in the cam