ates Drew, Flynn, and Keegan, and six Mohaves, making
twenty in all.

"The exploration of the Colorado River," says Wheeler, "may now be
considered complete." The question may fairly be asked, Why was the
exploration now any more complete than it was before Wheeler made this
unnecessary trip? Powell, two years before, had been through the part
ascended, and Wheeler, so far as I can determine, added little of value
to what was known before. If he thought Powell had not completed the
work of exploration, as his words imply, the exploration was still not
complete, for there remained the distance to the Little Colorado, and
to the Paria, and so on up to the source of the river, which Wheeler had
not been over. If he accepted Powell's exploration ABOVE Diamond Creek,
why did he not accept it below? His nerve and luck in accomplishing the
ascent to Diamond Creek deserve great praise, but the trip itself cannot
be considered anything but a needless waste of energy.

Meanwhile, as noted in the last chapter, our own party had passed the
Crossing of the Fathers, had arrived at the mouth, of the Paria, and,
according to our plans, had cached our boats there for the winter while
we proceeded to inaugurate our land work of triangulation. A number of
us were left for a while in camp in a valley lying between the Kaibab
Plateau, then called Buckskin Mountain, and what is now called Paria
Plateau, at a spring in a gulch of the Vermilion Cliffs. Two large rocks
at this place had fallen together in such a way that one could crawl
under for shelter. This was on the old trail leading from the Mormon
settlements to the Moki country, travelled about once a year by Jacob
Hamblin and a party on a trading expedition to the other side of the
river. Somebody on one of these trips had taken refuge beneath this
rock, and on departing had written, in a facetious mood, along the top
with a piece of charcoal, "Rock House Hotel." Naturally, in referring
to the spring it was called, by the very few who knew it, Rock House
Spring, and then the spring where the House Rock was, or House Rock
Spring. From this came House Rock Valley, and the name was soon a
fixture, and went on our maps. And thus easily are names established
in a new country. All around were evidences of former occupation by the
Puebloans, and I became greatly interested in examining the locality. At
length, we were ordered across the Kaibab to the vicinity of Kanab, and
I shall never fail