ons had been trained against us by the trappers on the
chance that we were either officers of the law, or competitors in the
horse-stealing industry. For that matter we were actually guilty of
the latter count, for come to think of it, we ourselves had helped
them steal eight horses and a colt!

The entire trip through this pretty valley was full of interest. It
was all so different from anything seen above. There were great
bottoms that gave evidence of having recently been overflooded, though
now covered with cottonwood trees, gorgeous in their autumn foliage.
We had often wondered where all the driftwood that floated down the
Colorado came from; but after seeing those unnumbered acres of
cottonwoods we ceased to wonder.

There were many beaver slides on the banks; and in places, numberless
trees had been felled by these industrious animals. On one or two
occasions we narrowly escaped splitting the sides of our boats on
snags of trees which the beavers had buried in the bottom of the
stream. We saw no beaver dams on the river; they were not necessary,
for deep, quiet pools existed everywhere in Brown's Park. We saw two
beavers in this section. One of these rose, porpoise-like, to the top
of the water, stared at us a moment, then brought his tail down with a
resounding smack on the top of the water, and disappeared, to enter
his home by the subterranean route, no doubt. The river was gradually
losing its clear colour, for the sand-bars were beginning to "work
out," or break, making the water quite roily. In some sections of
Brown's Park we grounded on these sand-bars, making it necessary for
us to get out into the water, pushing and pulling on the boats until
deeper water was reached. Sometimes the deep water came when least
expected, the sand-bars having a disconcerting way of dropping off
abruptly on the downstream side. Jimmy stepped off the edge of one of
these hidden ledges while working with a boat and was for some time in
no condition to appreciate our ill-concealed mirth.

Often we would be passing along on perfectly smooth water, when
suddenly a turmoil would rise all about us as though a geyser had
broken out below the surface. If we happened to be directly over it,
the boat would be rocked back and forth for a while; then all would be
peaceful again. This was most often caused by the ledges of sand,
anywhere from three to ten feet high breaking down or falling forward
as their bases were undermined. In a