urned out to be the culminating point of the
Shewits Plateau. None of us visited it at that time, but Thompson went
there later, and I crossed its slopes twice several years afterward. On
the summit is a circular ruin about twenty feet in diameter with walls
remaining two feet high.

It will be remembered that we had left one of our boats near the mouth
of the Dirty Devil River. A party was to go overland to that point
and bring this boat down to the Paria, and on the 25th of May (1872)
Thompson started at the head of the party to try to explore a way in to
the mouth of the Dirty Devil, at the same time investigating the country
lying in between and examining the Unknown or Dirty Devil Mountains
which had been seen from the river, just west of the course of the Dirty
Devil River, now named Fremont River. We went west to a ranch called
Johnson after the owner, thence north-westerly, passing the little
Mormon settlement of Clarkson, and then struck out into the wilderness.
Keeping a north-westerly course we crossed the upper waters of the Paria
and made our way to the head of a stream flowing through what was called
Potato Valley, and which the party of the previous year had followed
down, endeavouring to find a trail by which to bring rations to us,
under the impression that it was the head of the Dirty Devil. We also
turned our course down it with the same idea. We had taken with us a Pai
Ute guide whom we called Tom, but as we advanced into this region so far
from his range, Tom got nervous and wanted to go back, and we saw him no
more till our return. Six years before a Mormon reconnoitring party had
penetrated as far as this, and in one place en route we passed the
spot where one of their number who had been killed by the Utes had been
buried. The grave had been dug out by the wolves, and a few whitened
bones lay scattered around. It was a place where there was no water and
we could not stop to reinter them. Several days after this we reached
a point where progress seemed to be impossible in that direction, and
Thompson and Dodds climbed up on high ground to reconnoitre. When they
came back they said we were not on the headwaters of the Dirty Devil
at all, and would be obliged to change our course completely. The Dirty
Devil entered the Colorado on the other side of the Unknown Range and
the stream we were on joined it on this side, the west, therefore it was
plain that we had made a mistake. Accordingly, our steps we