to show the effect of hard usage, so we concluded to take the paint
along. At another point, this same day, we found a corked bottle
containing a faded note, undated, requesting the finder to write to a
certain lady in Delta, Colorado. A note in my journal, beneath a
record of this find, reads: "Aha! A romance at last!" Judging by the
appearance of the note it might have been thrown in many years before.
Delta, we knew, was on the Gunnison River, a tributary of the Grand
River. The bottle must have travelled over two hundred miles to reach
this spot.

A letter which I sent out later brought a prompt answer, with the
information that this bottle and four others with similar notes were
set adrift by the writer and four of her schoolmates, nearly two years
before. An agreement was made that the one first receiving an answer
was to treat the others to a dinner. Our find was the second, so this
young lady was a guest instead of the host.

Emery took but little interest in our camp arrangements this evening,
and went to bed as soon as it was possible for him to do so. He said
little, but he was very weak, and I could tell from his drawn face
that he was suffering, and knew that it was nothing but nervous energy
that kept him at his work--that, and a promise which he had made to
build a fire, within a stated time now less than two weeks away, in
Bright Angel Creek Canyon, nearly three hundred miles below this camp,
a signal to his wife and baby that he would be home the next day. I
was worried about his condition and I feared a fever or pneumonia. For
two or three days he had not been himself. It was one thing to battle
with the river when well and strong; it would be decidedly different
if one of us became seriously ill.

For the first time in all our experiences together, where
determination and skill seemed necessary to success, I had taken the
lead during the past two days, feeling that my greater weight and
strength, perhaps, would help me pull out of danger where he might
fail. In two or three rapids I felt sure he did not have the strength
to pull away from certain places that would smash the boats. After
running the _Defiance_ through these rapids I suggested to him that;
he would take a picture while I brought the _Edith_ down. He would
stay near the _Defiance_, ready to aid in case of emergency. After
being once through a rapid I found it quite a simple matter to run the
second boat, and the knowledge that he wo