Powell sat up that night plotting out his course and concluded from it that the mouth of the Virgen could not be more than forty-five miles away in a straight line.

Calculating eighty or ninety miles by the river, and allowing for the open country he knew existed below the end of the Grand Canyon, he concluded that they must soon reach the mouth and be able to find the Mormon settlements about twenty miles up the Virgen River.

Then he awoke Howland and explained the situation, and they talked it over.

The substance of this talk is not stated, but Howland went to sleep again while Powell paced the sand till dawn, pondering on the best course to take.

The immediate danger of the rapid he thought could be overcome with safety, but what was below?
To climb out here, even were it possible, was to reach the edge of a desert with the nearest Mormon town not less than seventy-five miles distant, across an unknown country.