But there comes a time for everything.

The moment for shattering this mystery had apparently arrived and the mortal who was to achieve this wonderful feat enters upon the scene with the quiet nerve and perfect confidence of a master.

He realised the gravity of the proposition and therein rested his strength.

He knew no ordinary boat could hope to live in the turmoil of waters that lashed themselves to fury among the rocks and against the towering and continuous cliffs; and he knew the party must be self-supporting in every sense of the term, depending on nothing but their own powers and what they could carry along.
The universal dread of the Colorado and its gorges had by this time considerably augmented.

The public imagination pictured the roaring flood ploughing its dismal channel through dark subterranean galleries where human life would not be worth a single drop of tossing spray; or leaping at a bound over precipices beside which the seething plunge of Niagara was but a toy.