s of man were bodied forth in eternal fixity. Towers of
battle, domes of prayer, fanes of worship, and then--the kneeling women!
Somehow one couldn't whistle there. Bill and the Kid, little given to
sentiment, sat quietly and stared.

Late in the afternoon we found ourselves out of this "Region of Weir."
Great wall rocks soared above us. Consulting our map, we found that we
were nearing Eagle Rapids, the first of a turbulent series. I had fondly
anticipated shooting them all under power. So once more I decided to go
over that engine. We landed at the wooded mouth of a little ravine,
having made a trifle over twenty miles that day.

With those tools of the engine doctor--an air of mystery and a
monkey-wrench--I unscrewed everything that appeared to have a thread on
it, and pulled out the other things. The odds, I figured, were in my
favor. A sick engine is useless, and I felt assured of either killing or
curing. I did something--I don't know what; but having achieved the
complete screwing up and driving in of things--_it went_!

So on the morning of the fourth day, we were up early, eager for the
shooting of rapids. We had understood from the conversation of the
seemingly wise, that Eagle Rapids was the first of a series that made
the other rapids we had passed through look like mere ripples on the
surface. In some of those we had gone at a very good clip, and several
times we had lost our rudder.

I remembered how the steamboats used to be obliged to throw out cables
and slowly wind themselves up with the power of the "steam nigger." I
also remembered the words of Father de Smet: "There are many rapids, ten
of which are very difficult to ascend and very dangerous to go down."

We had intended from the very first to get wrecked in one or all of
these rapids. For this reason we had distributed forward, aft, and
amidships, eight five-gallon cans, soldered air-tight. The frail craft
would, we figured, be punctured. The cans would displace nearly three
hundred and fifty pounds of water, and the boat and engine, submerged,
would lose a certain weight. I had made the gruesome calculation with
fond attention to detail. I decided that she should be wrecked quite
arithmetically. We should be able, the figures said, to recover the
engine and patch the boat. We had provided three life-preservers, but
one had been stolen; so I had fancied what a bully fight one might have
if he should be thrown out into the mad waters without a