long the
party sat sadly watching the place to see if the treacherous river
would give up the dead, but darkness fell in the gorge, and the
Colorado dashed along toward the sea as if no boat had ever touched its
relentless tide. What was one man more or less to this great dragon's
maw! For three days after the others battled their way along without
further disaster, and then came Sunday, when they rested. On Monday,
while Stanton and Nims were making notes and photographs, the men were
to finish up the lower end of the second of two very bad rapids where
portages were made. Stanton's boat, containing Hansborough and Richards,
was following the first boat, which had made the stretch with difficulty
because the current set against the left-hand cliff. The second boat was
driven against the foot of this wall under an overhanging shelf, and in
the attempt to push her off she was capsized and Hansborough never
rose again. Richards, who was a strong swimmer, made some distance
down-stream, but before the first boat could reach him he sank, and
that was the end for him. This terrible disaster, added to the death of
Brown, and the foolhardiness of proceeding farther with such boats
as they had, forced the decision which should have been made at Lee's
Ferry. Stanton resolved to leave the river, but with the determination
to return again to battle with the dragon at the earliest opportunity.
The next thing was to get out of the canyon. They searched for some side
canyon leading in from the north, by means of which they might return to
the world, and just above Vesey's Paradise they found it and spent their
last night in Marble Canyon at that point. From the rapid where Brown
was lost, to Vesey's Paradise, my diary records that on our expedition
of 1872 we ran twenty-six rapids, let down four times, and made two
portages, all without any particular difficulty. I mention this merely
to show the difference proper boats make in navigating this river,
for the season was nearly the same; Brown was there in July and we in
August, both the season of high water. The night passed by Stanton and
his disheartened but courageous band at Vesey's Paradise was long to be
remembered, for one of the violent thunderstorms frequent in the canyon
in summer, came up. The rain fell in floods, while about midnight the
storm culminated in a climax of fury. Stanton says that in all his
experience in the Western mountains he never heard anything like it.
"N