We selected a spot for a temporary camp, at the first grass we met with while descending the cañon, intending from that point to accomplish the ascent and return in a single day. Night was now approaching, and we hastened toward the camp.

When within three miles of it, we came upon our fearless topographers, Mr. Beckler, who, with a shotgun loaded with small shot, stood face to face with a she grizzly and two cubs, which he had frightened from their lair in the thicket, while in search of small game. Fortunately, in attempting to discharge his gun it missed fire, and probably saved him from a deadly encounter with the irritated animal, or a hasty ascent of a tree as a possible alternative. We prevailed upon him to return with us, and await a more favorable opportunity for a tussle with grizzlies.

During our absence two of the boys had felled a tall pine that stood upon the bank of the stream for a foot-bridge, and while trimming off the branches from the prostrate trunk, contrived to lose the axe in the river, about forty-five feet from the shore. It was the only one remaining in camp, two others having been broken. We could hardly have lost anything so constantly in demand, or so difficult to replace. It had sunk, and in the clear stream lay in full view on the bottom of the river, in the midst of the rapids. The boys had made every effort they could devise to recover it, but in vain, and it was given up as lost. Two other members of our party had killed and brought into camp a good-sized black bear, which is one of the most formidable animals in the Rocky Mountains. We were made aware, by the finding of a flint arrowhead, of the fact that our present camp had, in days gone by, been occupied by Indians. As long ago as the visit of Lewis and Clarke to this country, the Indian tribes had substituted sheet-iron for flint in the manufactures of their arrow-heads,—the material being supplied to them by the Hudson's Bay Company. Lewis and Clarke, on one occasion, bought several horses with a worn-out joint of stove-pip. Judging from its appearance, many years must have elapsed since the arrowhead found by us was last in use; so this region, new to us, was long ago the occasional abode of the Indians.

-from pages 48-51