this. Rounded limestone boulders, hard as flint and covered with a
thin slime of mud from the recent rise, caused us to slip and fall
many times. Then we dragged ourselves and loads up the sloping walls.
They were cut with gullies from the recent rains; low scraggy cedars
caught at our loads, or tore our clothes, as we staggered along; the
muddy earth stuck to our shoes, or caused our feet to slip from under
us as we climbed, first two or three hundred feet above the water,
then close to the river's edge. Three-fourths of a mile of such work
brought us a level place below the rapid. It took nine loads to empty
one boat.

Darkness came on before our boats were emptied, so they were securely
tied in quiet water at the head of the rapid, and left for the
morning.

The next day found Emery and me at work on the boats, while Jimmy was
stationed on the shore with the motion-picture camera. This wild
scene, with its score of shooting currents, was too good a view to
miss. With life-preservers inflated and adjusted, Emery sat in the
boat at the oars, pulling against the current, lessening the velocity
with which the boat was carried down toward the main barrier, while I
followed on the shore, holding a rope, and dropped him down, a little
at a time, until the water became too rough and the rocks too
numerous. All directions were given with signals; the human voice was
of little avail in the turmoil. We kept the boats in the water as long
as it was safe to do so, for it greatly lessened the hard work of a
portage. With one end of the boat floating on the water, an ordinary
lift would take the other end over a rock with insufficient water
above it to float the boat. Then the boat was balanced on the rock,
the opposite end was lifted, she was shoved forward and dropped in the
water again and another threatening rock was passed. Foot by foot we
fought our way, now on the shore, now waist deep in the water below
some protecting boulder, threatened every moment by the whirling water
that struggled to drag us into the torrent. The sand and water
collecting in our clothes weighted us down; the chill of standing in
the cold water numbed our limbs. Finally the barrier was reached and
the boats were run out close to the end, and tied in a quiet pool,
while we devised some method of getting them past or over this
obstruction.

Directly underneath and beyond the roots of the tree were large
rounded boulders, covered with slippery mud.