mmit of
some sandstone peaks on the left, where the wall of Glen Canyon breaks
away to the southward. The view was superb. Mountains, solid and
solitary, rose up here and there, and lines of cliffs, strangely
coloured, stretched everywhere across the wide horizon, while from our
feet, like a veritable huge writhing dragon, Marble Canyon zigzagged its
long, dark line into the blue distance, its narrow tributaries looking
like the monster's many legs. I took it into my head to try to shoot
from there into the water of Glen Canyon beneath us, and borrowed
Bishop's 44-calibre Remington revolver for the purpose. When I pulled
the trigger I was positively startled by the violence of the report, a
deafening shock like a thousand thunder-claps in one; then dead silence.
Next, from far away there was a rattle as of musketry, and peal after
peal of the echoing shot came back to us. The interval of silence was
timed on another trial and was found to be exactly twenty seconds.*
The result was always the same, and from this unusual echo we named the
place Echo Peaks.

* Should be twenty-four seconds.

I had made Jones a pair of crutches, by means of which he was able to
hobble painfully around, and by the time the pack-train was ready to
start for the settlement, about one hundred miles away, he could bear
being lifted upon a horse. Steward, also, was able to ride, and with a
number of us walking we left the Paria behind.

November's sharp days were upon us. We had only the remains of
our summer clothing and few blankets, so that when the thermometer
registered 11 degrees F. above zero we did not dispute it.

CHAPTER XII

Into the Jaws of the Dragon--A Useless Experiment--Wheeler Reaches
Diamond Creek Going Up-stream--The Hurricane Ledge--Something about
Names--A Trip from Kanab through Unknown Country to the Mouth of the
Dirty Devil.

While our party, in September, was battling with the cataracts, another,
as we afterwards learned, was starting from Camp Mohave on a perilous,
impracticable, and needless expedition up the Colorado. How far this
party originally expected to be able to proceed against the tremendous
obstacles I have never understood, but the after-statement mentions
Diamond Creek as the objective point. That such a wild, useless, and
costly struggle should have been allowed by the War Department, which
authorised it, seems singular, more particularly as little new was or
could be, accomplished by i