the waters rise higher and higher as they
come to the apex, reaching twenty-five feet or over in a high tide.
This causes a tidal bore to roll up the Colorado, and from all reports
it was something to be avoided. The earliest Spanish explorers told
some wonderful tales of being caught in this bore and of nearly losing
their little sailing vessels.

This was my first experience with river tides. It was somewhat of a
disappointment to me that I could not arrange to be here at a high
tide, for we had come at the first quarter of the moon. Out on the
open sea one can usually make some headway by rowing against the ebb
or flow of the tide: here on the Colorado, where it flowed upstream at
a rate of from five to eight miles an hour, it was different. When we
reached the head of the tide, it was going out. Unfortunately for us
the day was gone when the current began to run strong. It hardly
seemed advisable to travel with it after dark. We might pass the
ranch, or be carried against a rock-bound coast, or find difficulty in
landing and be overwhelmed by the tidal bore. So when darkness fell we
camped pulling our boat out in a little slough to prevent it from
being carried away. Evidently we were too near the headwaters for a
tidal bore, for at eleven P.M. the waters turned and came back as
quietly as they ran out.

We launched our boat before the break of day, and for four hours we
travelled on a good current. The channel now had widened to a
half-mile, with straight earthy banks, about fifteen feet high. Still
there was no sign of a ranch, and it began to look to us as if there
was little likelihood of finding any.

The land was nearly level and except for a few raised hummocks on
which grew some scattered trees, it was quite bare. This was not only
because it did not get the life-giving water from the north, but
because at times it was submerged under the saline waters from the
south. Near the shores of the river, and extending back for fifty
feet, was a matted, rank growth of grass; beyond that the earth was
bare, baked and cracked by the burning sun. This grass, we found, was
a favorite resort of rattlesnakes. We killed two of them, a large one
and a vicious little flat-headed sidewinder.

All this land was the south rim of the silt dam, which extended from
the line of cliffs or mesa on the east to the mountains on the west.
The other rim, a hundred feet higher, lay at least fifty miles to the
north. Here was the rest