s
below, cheerful as a cricket, and sure that a few months at the most
would bring him unlimited wealth. He asked us to "share his chuck"
with him, but we could see nothing but a very little flour, and a
little bacon, so pleaded haste and pushed on for Diamond Creek.

The mouth of this canyon did not look unlike others we had seen in
this section, and one could easily pass it without knowing that it ran
back with a gentle slope for twenty miles, and that a wagon road came
down close to the river. It contained a small, clear stream. The
original tourist camp in the Grand Canyon was located up this canyon.
We packed all our plates and films, ready to take them out. The
supplies left in the boats when we went out the next morning were:

5 pounds of flour, partly wet and crusted.
2 pounds mildewed Cream of Wheat.
3 or 4 cans (rusty) of dried beef.
Less than one pound of sugar.

We carried a lunch out with us. This was running a little too close
for comfort.

The mouth of Diamond Creek Canyon was covered with a growth of large
mesquite trees. Cattle trails wound through this thorny thicket down
to the river's edge. The trees thinned out a short distance back, and
the canyon widened as it receded from the river. A half mile back from
the river was the old slab building that had served as headquarters
for the campers. Here the canyon divided, one containing the small
stream heading in the high walls to the southeast; while the other
branch ran directly south, heading near the railroad at the little
flag-station of Peach Springs, twenty-three miles distant.
It was flat-bottomed, growing wider and more valley-like with every
mile, but not especially interesting to one who had seen the glory of
all the canyons. Floods had spoiled what had once been a very passable
stage road, dropping 4000 feet in twenty miles, down to the very
depths of the Grand Canyon. Some cattle, driven down by the snows,
were sunning themselves near the building. Our appearance filled them
with alarm, and they "high tailed it" to use a cattle man's
expression, scampering up the rocky slopes.

A deer's track was seen in a snow-drift away from the river. On the
sloping walls in the more open sections of this valley grew the
stubby-thorned chaparral. The hackberry and the first specimens of the
palo verde were found in this vicinity. The mesquite trees seen at the
mouth of the canyon were real trees--about the size of a large apple