ogs-back" lay on the left
side of the stream. Once out in the open the walls were seen to be
quite steep, but could be climbed to the top almost any place without
trouble. Saturday, January the 13th, we were out of the canyon at
last, and the towering walls, now friendly, now menacing, were behind
us. Three hundred and sixty-five large rapids, and nearly twice as
many small rapids, were behind us and the dream of ten years was an
accomplished fact. But best of all, there were no tragedies or
fatalities to record. Perhaps we did look a little the worse for wear,
but a few days away from the river would repair all that. The boats
had a bump here and there, besides the one big patch on the _Edith_; a
little mending and a little caulking would put both the _Edith_ and
_Defiance_ in first-class condition.

There is little of interest to record of our 175-mile run to Needles,
California. It was a land of desolation--an extension of the Mojave
Desert on the south, and the alkaline flats and mineral mountains of
Nevada on the north, of Death Valley and the Funeral Mountains of
California to the northwest--a burned-out land of grim-looking
mountains extending north and south across our way; a dried-out,
washed-out, and wind-swept land of extensive flats and arroyos; a land
of rock and gravel cemented in marls and clay; ungraced with any but
the desert plants,--cactus and thorny shrubs,--with little that was
pleasing or attractive. A desert land it is true, but needing only the
magic touch of water to transform much of it into a garden spot. Even
as it was, a few months later it would be covered with the flaming
blossoms of the desert growth, which seem to try to make amends in one
or two short months for nearly a year of desolation.

A wash ran along the base of the plateau from which we had emerged. An
abandoned road and ferry showed that this had once been a
well-travelled route. The stream had a good current and we pulled
away, only stopping once to see the last of our plateau before a turn
and deepening banks hid it from view. We wondered if the water ever
dropped in a precipitous fall over the face of the wall and worked
back, a little every year, as it does at Niagara. We could hardly
doubt that there were some such falls back in the dim past when these
canyons were being carved.

In the middle of the afternoon we passed a ranch or a house with a
little garden, occupied by two miners, who hailed us from the shore. A
ha