Less than an hour later I repeated my brother's performance, but I was not so fortunate as he. The _Defiance_ was carried against one rock as I tried to pull clear of another, and in an instant she was on her side, held by the rush of water. I caught the gunwale, and, climbing on to the rock that caused the disaster, I managed to catch the rope and held the boat. In the meantime Emery was in a whirlpool below, trying to land on the right side; but was having a difficult time of it. Jimmy stood on the shore unable to help. The bed was washed out of the boat and went bobbing over the waves, then before I knew what had happened, the rope was jerked from my hands and I was left stranded on my rock. Seeing this, Jimmy ran with all his might for a pool at the end of the rapid, bravely rescuing the boat and the bed as well, just as the _Edith_ was landed. A rope was soon thrown to me, after the inevitable picture was made. Then I jumped and was pulled to shore.
On making an inventory we found that our guns were lost from the boat. Being too long to go under the hatches, they had been left in the cockpit. The _Defiance_ had an ugly rap on the bottom, where she struck a rock, the wood being smashed or jammed, but not broken out. Nearly all material in the two boats was wet, so we took everything out and piled it on a piece of canvas, spread out on the sand. We worked rapidly, for another storm had been threatening all the morning.
We were engaged in putting up our little tent when a violent wind which swept up the canyon, followed by a downpour of rain interrupted our work; and if anything missed a soaking before, it certainly received it then. The sand was beaten into our cameras and everything was scattered helter-skelter over the shore. We were fortunate in only one respect. The wind was away from the river instead of toward it. We finally got the tent up, then threw everything into it in an indiscriminate pile, and waited for the storm to pass. Emery proposed that we do a song and dance just to show how good we felt; but any appearance of merriment was rather forced.
Had the builders of the boats been there, we fear they would have had an uncomfortable half-hour; for nearly all this loss could have been avoided had our instructions regarding the hatch covers been followed. And for the sake of their saving a few dollars we had to suffer!