CHAPTER V



THE BATTLE WITH LODORE

Camp routine was hurriedly disposed of the next morning, Saturday,
September the 23d. Everything was made snug beneath the hatches,
except the two guns, which were too long to go under the decks, and
had to be carried in the open cockpits. "Camp No. 13, at the head of
Lodore," as it is entered in my journal, was soon hidden by a bend in
the river. The open, sun-lit country, with its pleasant ranches and
its grazing cattle, its rolling, gray, sage-covered hills and its wild
grass and cottonwood-covered bottoms, was left behind, and we were
back in the realm of the rock-walled canyon, and beetle-browed,
frowning cliffs with pines and cedars clutching at the scanty ledges.

We paused long enough to make a picture or two, with the hope that the
photographic record would give to others some idea of the geological
and scenic wonder--said to be the greatest known example of its
kind--which lay before us. Here is an obstructing mountain raised
directly in the river's path. Yet with no deviation whatever the
stream has cut through the very centre of the peak! The walls are
almost sheer, especially at the the bottom, and are quite close
together at the top. A mile inside the mountain on the left or east
side of the gorge is 2700 feet high. Geologists say that the river was