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Show Record Savage was an old craftsman and he took the raft and I handled the the boat. We had our camp outfit and tools in the boat. On the way down our raft ran on to a submerged rock and became fastened so solidly that we had to tear it up to get it out. I went below with the boat and caught the pieces of lumber as they came down 3457 and carried then to shore. I worked the boat up in the eddy to a point where I could get Mr. Savage off. We did not rebuild the raft because we were then not very far distant from the place where we intended to make our camp, which was in what was known locally as the Upper Canyon, at a point eight or ten miles below Comb Wash and extended perhaps fifteen or eighteen miles to the Mexican Hat basin. There were some riffles in that section of the river and it was pretty swift all the way through those canyons. 3458 One might say that the rapids occurred quite frequently. We put in out water elevator, which was known as a Chinese pump, with a structure at the edge of the river to lift the water there at our camp. We remained there three or four days or a week. A flood came down the river the night after we finished putting our pump in and washed it and our elevator away before we could save them, and we only panned a little sand with a rocker that we used for 3459 prospecting purposes. We then returned to Bluff and on back to Colorado. I am not sure whether we walked back up to Bluff, but I think we left our boat with some people in the canyon and walked up to where we had left our team and wagon, and then of course went on to Bluff with the team. There were quite a number of other prospectors in there at that time, perhaps twelve or fifteen in that canyon. In October, 1893, I came back with team and wagon with my father and brother to the mouth of Camp Wash, or just below there. 3460 We prospected and traveled over that country, learning what we could about condition on the river and the mineral resources of the region. We could not get any ground in the upper canyon because it was all located by U. S. mining locations. Some of the |
