The cabins were packed with unusual care, the life-preservers were inflated and put where they could be quickly seized on the approach to a bad descent, and at four o'clock we were afloat.

The wide horizon vanished.

The cliffs, red and majestic, rose at one bound to a height of about 2000 feet on each side, the most abrupt and magnificent gateway to a canyon imaginable.

We entered slowly, for the current in the beginning is not swift, and we watched the mighty precipices while they appeared to fold themselves together behind and shut us more than ever away from the surrounding wilderness.
For a short time the stream was quite tame.

Then the murmur of distant troubled waters reached us and we prepared for work.