They soon had finished eight, dugouts undoubtedly, though Pattie does not say so, and they already had one which Pattie had made on the Gila.

Uniting these by platforms in pairs they embarked upon them with all their furs and traps, leaving their saddles hidden on the bank.
On the 9th of December (1827)* they started, probably the first navigators of this part of the river since Alarcon, 287 years before.
That night they set forty traps and were rewarded with thirty-six beaver.

Such good luck decided them to travel slowly with the current, about four miles an hour, "and trap the river clear." The stream was about two hundred to three hundred yards wide, with bottoms extending back from six to ten miles, giving good camp-grounds all along.

With abundance of fat beaver meat and so many pelts added to their store they forgot their misfortunes and began to count on reaching the Spanish settlements they thought existed near the mouth of the river.

Sometimes their traps yielded as many as sixty beaver in a night, and finally they were obliged to halt and make another canoe.