That was four and a quarter feet for each mile of the sixty-two we had put behind.

We always counted the miles put behind, for we knew they could not be retraced, but it was ever the miles and the rapids ahead that we kept most in our minds.

We were now at the beginning of the real battle with the "Sunken River." Henceforth, high and forbidding cliffs with few breaks, would imprison the stream on both sides.
A loss of our provisions would mean a journey on foot, after climbing out of the canyon, to Green River (Wyoming) to Salt Lake City or to the Uinta Indian Agency.

There was a trail from Brown's Hole (now Brown's Park) back to the railway, but the difficulty would be to reach it if we should be wrecked in Red Canyon.

We did not give these matters great concern at the time, but I emphasise them now to indicate some of the difficulties of the situation and the importance of preventing the wreck of even one boat.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 3: Two were of the original Henry pattern.] [Footnote 4: For further description of these boats the reader is referred to _The Romance of the Colorado River_, page 236, by F.S.
Dellenbaugh.].