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Show Record Bluff people had claims at the mouth of Lime Creek, otherwise called Epsom Creek, above Mexican Hat. During that time we did 3461 all our traveling in the upper canyon overland, When we went down into the lower canyon we got a boat. We remained in that country for nearly a year on that occasion. My father and brother stayed there all through the winter of 1893, but I went out to Durango on horseback and returned in March, 1894. We then brought 3462 the iron or a small machine I had devised for saving gold and quite a lot of supplies. We also took several men down with us. Meanwhile there had been quite an excitement over the discoveries my father and I had made in the lower canyon. We called the canyon starting in just below Gypsum Wash and extending down for forty- five or fifty miles the lower canyon. We also called it Fossil Canyon. It begins perhaps three miles below Mexican Hat. 3463 In 1894 we carried our supplies down by pack animals by what was known as the Mendenhall trail, which we had established the fall before. The principal excitement at Gable camp was in the year 1892, and I was not there at that time. I didn't get as far down as the mouth of Nokai until fall of 1894, except when I went through the canyon with the boat the first time. I came back on foot overland, following no trail or anything, although I knew there were roads down in that section. I first went down to Nokai 3464 the latter part of August or September, 1894. I made my boat at Bluff and put it into the river at Bluff. It was a straight scow about fifteen feet long and probably three and a half feet wide. This was in August and September, 1894. We were working placer bars down there and my brother and I had discussed the feasibility of going down the river with boats and taking our work outfit with us and going on through to the Colorado River. I started out alone 3465 with this scow that I had built at Bluff to find out if we could get through the canyon with out outfit. I went through, made it all right, and got through to the Talman and Atwood placer camp, located right at the old Gable camp - what we called the Valley, |