The loss of the boat seemed at first to mark the end of their
attempt to equal the record of their predecessors. But Monett insisted
that they try his plan of straddling the stern of the remaining boat. "If
we strike too rough water, I can always swing overboard," he urged. "And
we've needed a drag that wouldn't get fouled on the rocks all along."
Reach Bright Angel. It was noon, January 6, when the trail party from the
hotel on the Canyon's rim at Bright Angel, forty men and women, eating
their luncheon at the river shore, saw two men swing out of the rapids two
hundred yards up the river, and row leisurely toward them. In the thirty
years that tourists have visited the bottom of the Canyon at this point, it
is safe to assert that not one ever saw a sight like this.
Rest for Three Days. Two horses were placed at the disposal of the miners.
Their clothes were torn and soaking wet, their faces covered with an
undisturbed growth of beard of one hundred and ten days' accumulation.
While they had planned to climb out of the Canyon at this point to mail and
receive letters, they had no intention of remaining. With all their
provisions now confined to the limited quarters of one boat, and with other
incentives to push on with all speed possible, it was with difficulty that
they were persuaded to remain at the hotel three days.
