This appeal evidently touched Moze, for he barked, and plunged
in. He made the water fly, and when carried off his feet,
breasted the current with energy and power. He made shore almost
even with me, and wagged his tail. Not to be outdone, Jude, Tige
and Don followed suit, and first one and then another was swept
off his feet and carried downstream. They landed below me. This
left Ranger, the pup, alone on the other shore. Of all the
pitiful yelps ever uttered by a frightened and lonely puppy, his
were the most forlorn I had ever heard. Time after time he
plunged in, and with many bitter howls of distress, went back. I
kept calling, and at last, hoping to make him come by a show of
indifference, I started away. This broke his heart. Putting up
his head, he let out a long, melancholy wail, which for aught I
knew might have been a prayer, and then consigned himself to the
yellow current. Ranger swam like a boy learning. He seemed to be
afraid to get wet. His forefeet were continually pawing the air
in front of his nose. When he struck the swift place, he went
downstream like a flash, but still kept swimming valiantly. I
tried to follow along the sand-bar, but found it impossible. I
encouraged him by yelling. He drifted far below, stranded on an
island, crossed it, and plunged in again, to make shore almost
out of my sight. And when at last I got to dry sand, there was
Ranger, wet and disheveled, but consciously proud and happy.

After lunch we entered upon the seventy-mile stretch from the
Little to the Big Colorado.

Imagination had pictured the desert for me as a vast, sandy
plain, flat and monotonous. Reality showed me desolate mountains
gleaming bare in the sun, long lines of red bluffs, white sand