She told me
the women bathed in the river at daybreak, and asked me if I
would like to go with them.
I was only too glad to avail myself of her invitation, and so,
like Pharoah's daughter of old, I went with my gentle handmaiden
every morning to the river bank, and, wading in about knee-deep
in the thick red waters, we sat down and let the swift current
flow by us. We dared not go deeper; we could feel the round
stones grinding against each other as they were carried down, and
we were all afraid. It was difficult to keep one's foothold, and
Capt. Mellon's words were ever ringing in my ears, "He who
disappears below the surface of the Colorado is never seen
again." But we joined hands and ventured like children and played
like children in these red waters and after all, it was much
nicer than a tub of muddy water indoors.
A clump of low mesquite trees at the top of the bank afforded
sufficient protection at that hour; we rubbed dry, slipped on a
loose gown, and wended our way home. What a contrast to the
limpid, bracing salt waters of my own beloved shores!
When I thought of them, I was seized with a longing which
consumed me and made my heart sick; and I thought of these poor
people, who had never known anything in their lives but those
desert places, and that muddy red water, and wondered what they
would do, how they would act, if transported into some beautiful
forest, or to the cool bright shores where clear blue waters
invite to a plunge.
