[1] I have since been told that these men were killed near Mt. Dellenbaugh, but my version is as I remember Jacob Hamblin’s statement to me in 1872. He was the first to get the story.
The Basket Maker. The Basket Maker. Old woman of the Kaibab Pai Utes. Behind is the typical Pai Ute dwelling of boughs and brush. The dwellings of the Shewits are similar. Photograph by J.K. HILLERS, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
Meanwhile the boat party dashed safely on through a succession of rapids till noon, when they arrived at another very bad place. In working through this by means of lines, Bradley was let down in one of the boats to fend her off the rocks, and finding himself in a serious predicament started to cut the line, when the stern of the boat pulled away and he shot down alone. He was a powerful man, and snatching up the steering oar, with several strong strokes he put her head down stream and immediately boat and all disappeared amidst the foaming breakers. But he came out unharmed, and in time to render service to Powell’s boat, which was badly shaken up in the passage. The other men of Bradley’s boat, left behind, were obliged to make a long and difficult climb before they were able to rejoin their craft. By night they had run entirely out of the granite, and at noon the next day, without encountering any more serious trouble, they emerged at last from the depths of the giant chasm. They were at the mouth of the Grand Wash. The Dragon of Waters was vanquished. Not that the Dragon would not fight again just as before, but those who attacked him in future would understand his temper.
Brother Belder’s—Virgen City. Brother Belder’s—Virgen City. A typical frontier Mormon home. Photograph by U.S. Geol. Survey.
Below this point Powell was guided by a manuscript journal which Jacob Hamblin and two other Mormons, Miller and Crosby, had kept on a boat journey a few years earlier from the Grand Wash to Callville. Ives and others having been up to Callville, the exploration of the Colorado was now complete. There was no part of it unknown; and Powell’s feat in descending through the long series of difficult canyons stands unrivalled in the annals of exploration on this continent. “The relief from danger and the joy of success are great,” he writes. “Ever before us has been an unknown danger, heavier than immediate peril. Every waking hour passed in the Grand Canyon has been one of toil.” His chief concern now was the fate of the men who had deserted him, but this was not revealed till the next year. Had they remained with the others, they probably would have gone safely through, but had they died, it would have been properly and gloriously, in the battle with the fierce river. In the history of expeditions, it is usually those who depart from the original plan who suffer most, for this plan is generally well considered beforehand, whereas any subsequent change is mainly based on error or fear. Running on through a couple of small canyons, they discovered on the bank some Pai Utes, who ran away, but a little farther down they came to another camp where several did not run. Nothing could be learned from them about the whites, yet a short distance below this they came upon three white men and a native hauling a seine. They had reached the goal! It was the mouth of the Virgen River! The men in the boat had heard that the whole party was lost and were on the lookout for wreckage. They were a father and his sons, named Asa, Mormons from a town about twenty miles up the Virgen. The total stock of food left the explorers was ten pounds of flour, fifteen of dried apples, and about seventy of coffee. Powell and his brother here said farewell to their companions of the long and perilous journey. They went to the Mormon settlements, while the others continued down the river in the boats to Yuma where Hawkins and Bradley left. Sumner and Hall continued to the Gulf which they reached before the end of September.