curling around between them. We went barefoot
most of the time, for we were more than half of the time in the water
which roared and dashed so loud that we could hardly heard each other
speak. We kept getting more and more venturesome and skillful, and
managed to run some very dangerous rapids in safety.

On the high peaks above our heads we could see the Rocky Mountain sheep
looking defiantly at us from their mountain fastnesses, so far away they
looked no larger than jack rabbits. They were too far off to try to
shoot at, and we had no time to try to steal up any nearer for at the
rate we were making, food would be the one thing needful, for we were
consuming it very fast. Sometimes we could ride a little ways, and then
would come the rough-and-tumble with the rocks again.

One afternoon we came to a sudden turn in the river, more than a right
angle, and, just below, a fall of two feet or more. This I ran in
safety, as did the rest who followed and we cheered at our pluck and
skill. Just after this the river swung back the other way at a right
angle or more, and I quickly saw there was danger below and signaled
them to go on shore at once, and lead the canoes over the dangerous
rapids. I ran my own canoe near shore and got by the rapid safely,
waiting for the others to come also. They did not obey my signals but
thought to run the rapid the same as I did. The channel here was
straight for 200 yards, without a boulder in it, but the stream was so
swift that it caused great, rolling waves in the center, of a kind I
have never seen anywhere else. The boys were not skillful enough to
navigate this stream, and the suction drew them to the center where the
great waves rolled them over and over, bottom side up and every way. The
occupants of our canoe let go and swam to shore. Fields had always been
afraid of water and had worn a life preserver every day since we left
the wagons. He threw up his hands and splashed and kicked at a terrible
rate, for he could not swim, and at last made solid ground. One of the
canoes came down into the eddy below, where it lodged close to the
shore, bottom up. Alfred Walton in the other canoe could not swim, but
held on to the gunwale with a death grip, and it went on down through
the rapids. Sometimes we could see the man and sometimes not, and he and
the canoe took turns in disappearing. Walton had very black hair, and as
he clung fast to his canoe his black head looked like a crow on the en