ends at the Bass Trail with "best wishes for a
Merry Christmas," and had received instructions from John "to keep our
feet dry"

My brother's account follows:

"The fourth rapid below the Bass Trail was bad, but after
looking it over we decided it could be run. We had taken
chances in rapids that looked worse and came through
unharmed; if we were successful here, it would be over in a
few minutes, and forgotten an hour later. So we each made
the attempt."

"Lauzon had gone near the lower end of the rapid, taking the
left shore, for a sixty-foot wall with a sloping bench on
top rose sheer out of the water on the right. The only shore
on the right was close to the head of the rapid, a small
deposit or bank of earth and rock. The inner gorge here was
about nine hundred feet deep."

"Ellsworth went first, taking the left-hand side. I picked
out a course on the right as being the least dangerous; but
I was scarcely started when I found myself on a nest of
jagged rocks, with violent water all about me, and with
other rocks, some of them submerged, below me. I climbed out
on the rocks and held the boat."

"If the others could land below the rapid and climb back,
they might get a rope to me and pull me off the rocks far
enough to give me a new start, but they could not pull the
boat in to shore through the rough water. A person thinks
quickly under such circumstances, I had it all figured out
as soon as I was on the rocks. The greatest trouble would be
to hold the boat if she broke loose."

"Then I saw that the _Defiance_ was in trouble. She caught
in a reverse whirl in the very middle of the pounding rapid,
bouncing back and forth like a great rubber ball. Finally
she filled with the splashing water, sank low, and the water
pouring over the rock caught the edge of the twelve-hundred
pound boat and turned her over as if she were a toy; my
brother was holding to the gunwale when she turned. Still
she was held in the whirl, jumping as violently as ever,
then turned upright again and was forced out. Ellsworth had
disappeared, but came up nearly a hundred feet below,
struggling to keep on top but going down with every breaking
wave. When the quieter water was reached, he did not seem to
have strength enough to swim out, but floated, mo