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Show Record Chinle Creek, I mean it was confined in a canyon. I have been right down in the river itself 10 or twelve miles below Chinle Creek and a dozen places between Chinle Creek and Goodrich Bridge 406 where the trails go down to the river. I did not go down in a boat. In those portions of the river there are some sand bars on each side; Sometimes there is solid rock on one side and sometimes solid rock on the other. The sand bars shift about. My first trip into that 407 country was a colonization mission. That was my life's work. Kumen Jones testified recross examination as follows: In picking out a place to ford a river it is the usual practice to pick out a shallow place where there is a good ford. 408 At the place where I went down to the San Juan River either to see it, to get water or to cross it, I would say the average depth of water at those places was 2 to 4 feet. I did not attempt to ford the river at high water. There is high water every spring when it is pretty risky to ford. Ordinarily high water begins about the first of May and extends to June first, when it recedes quite rapid-ly. The high water season is generally over in July. During the high either on horse back or on foot or in any other way, except 409 the Navajos will jump into it at any time. The times that I have forded the San Juan has been during the low water season, and the depths I have given above are the average depths of the water as I found them. I have seen the river every year during the 40 years I 410 have lived at Bluff. I live right near the river. But wherever I have forded the river, it has been fairly well confined and at those places it has been 2 to 4 feet deep. We usually take a gravel bar to ford if we can find one. The quick sand is very bad. During the 40 years I have lived in that country I have been personally active in rounding up cattle for a good many years. I have forded the river many, many times during some years during low 411 water. There was not a year that I did not ford the river back and forth many times when I lived there. I have gone over it on horse - 53- |