ing-place of a small portion of the sediment
carved away by the Colorado's floods. How deep it is piled and how far
it extends out under the waters of the Gulf would be hard to say.

We felt sure that we would get to the Gulf with this tide, but when
the time came for it to turn we were still many miles away. There was
nothing to do but to camp out on this sun-baked plain. We stopped a
little after 9.30 A.M. Now that we were nearing the Gulf we were sure
there would be a tidal bore. As we breakfasted a slight rushing sound
was heard, and what appeared to be a ripple of broken water or small
breaker came up the stream and passed on. This was a disappointment.
With high water on the river and with a low tide this was all the
tidal bore we would see.

In four hours the water rose fourteen feet, then for two hours the
rise was slower. Within three feet of the level it came. The opposite
side, rounded at the edges, looked like a thread on top of the water,
tapered to a single silken strand and looking toward the Gulf, merged
into the water. To all appearances it was a placid lake spread from
mountain to mesa.

Our smaller canteen was still filled with the fresh water secured the
evening before. The other had been emptied and was filled again before
the return of the tide, but considerable taste of the salt remained.
What we did now must be done with caution. So far we had not seen the
ranch. We were in doubt whether it was somewhere out on the coast or
back on one of the sloughs passed the evening before. We had heard of
large sail-boats being hauled from Yuma and launched by the ranch.
This would seem to indicate that it was somewhere on the Gulf. We had
provisions sufficient for one day, one canteen of fresh water, and
another so mixed with the salt water that we would not use it except
as a last resort.

A little after 3.30 P.M. the tide changed; we launched our boat and
went out with the flood. As we neared the mouth of the stream we found
that the inrush and outrush of water had torn the banks. Here the
river spread in a circular pool several miles across. It seemed almost
as if the waters ran clear to the line of yellow cliffs and to the
hazy mountain range. Then the shores closed in again just before the
current divided quite evenly on either side of a section of the barren
plain named Montague Island. We took the channel to the east.

Our last hope of finding the ranch was in a dried-out river channel,
overgrow