Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Stone-Lees


After Emett had left the ferry, I returned. My instructions were to remain at the ferry until replaced and I didn't know how long that would be but I hoped not too long. I wouldn't sleep near the old
dwellings there, John D. Lee's cabin or the old two-story driftwood home that Emett had built for his family. I went out in the orchard a little ways away and threw my bedroll down there. I was sound asleep one night when I was awakened by voices calling intermittently from the direction of the ferry, about a quarter of a mile from where I was. Now the ferry is hemmed in by tremendous, perpendicular, impassable ledges and by the Colorado River. It would be impossible for anyone to pass through the area without crossing the ferry, which would require my help, or by coming down the river in boats which hadn't been done since Major Powell did it in 1869. So I supposed it was Navajos who had swam their horses across the river. They were coming along the trail toward the ranch and as they drew closer, I decided they were not Indians; I could tell from their conversation they were white men and I could tell they didn't have horses but were walking. I was happy to know they were white men. While I was a friend of the Navajos too, I was glad to see somebody, even though I couldn't figure out how they
got there. It was pretty lonesome country. When they got about within a rod of me, I spoke up and I says, “Hello," and they all ran back up the trail. And they sure went, boy. I says, Come on back. We're friends, down here." They came back and one of them introduced himself as Julius F. Stone and in turn
introduced his three companions. One of their names was Galloway and one was a photographer. I can't remember the other.3° He informed me that he was from Columbus, Ohio, and that he and his
companions were the much advertised Julius F. Stone Expedition going through the Colorado River from Green River, Utah, to Needles, Arizona. And he said, as I knew, that this was the first expedition down the river since the initial successful exploratory expedition of Major Powell. Stone's trip, essentially a picture-taking one, was news to me as I hadn't seen a newspaper for months nor had I seen
anyone who had heard of this. They had run out of food and so I cooked them up what I had, and boy, did they eat. I thought they was going to eat everything myoId alforjas held. They said, HWell, we'll have some food for you tomorrow." They wanted to know where the owner or the operator
of the ferry was and I said, HNo one here but me." And Mr. Stone was quite concerned. But he said, uWell, we'll still find food tomorrow morning." He says, HI have a letter where they're to bury this
cache of food in case there's no one here." He handed me a copy of the letter he had sent to Emett. In it Stone outlined the essential foods that they would need to make it possible for the continuation
of their trip. He listed all these and enclosed a fifty dollar money order to compensate for the items. Then he underscored the following words: "In case there's no one at the ferry, make a cache of these articles within a twenty-five foot radius of the north support of the cable that pulls the ferry." So Stone asked me to meet them there at daybreak and to bring a shovel if I could find one. Well, I was so excited with the events and the prospects of having company that I couldn't sleep and was glad when the first colors of morning shot up over the red ledges. I pulled on my boots and was successful in finding a broken-handled shovel. I hurried up the river to join Stone and party, who were still asleep there in their sleeping bags. My saddle horse was so excited when he saw the three brightcolored boats that he stampeded and I let out a war whoop. I caused such a commotion that my friends thought the Navajos had found them and they scrambled out of their sleeping bags. They were happy to see it was only me. As soon as they were dressed, we went Up to that ferry mooring, you know, that cable mooring there. And we dug all that day until dark and all the next day until noon. Five of us out there, blisters on all our hands, everyone helped. But we couldn't find that cache. There wasn't one, by the way.31 By using my food and some powdered milk of Stone's, we prepared some meager meals.
They decided, because of the food situation, they couldn't stay any longer and they asked me how much bacon I had, and how much flour and how much dry fruit. And I had some beans, too, by the way. I didn't have very much. Just one man don't need very much, you know. And so I said they could have all of it except about one pound of flour and a half a pound of salt bacon; I was expecting a
relief to come around the ferry, anytime, maybe tomorrow, maybe It is interesting to compare Rider's version with Stone's. uWednesday, October 27,
1909 ... We reach Lee's Ferry at 12:35 and go into camp among the willows opposite John
D. Lee's stone fort . . . the fort is deserted, as is also the ranch house that was occupied by
Mr. Emmett [sic] when we were here before, he having sold out to a cattle company and
gone to Kanab, so Mr. Ryder [sic], a cowboy whom we find here, tells us. A careful search
for the supplies we were expecting to find in the place where they were to be cached is
fruitless. We also ransack the ranch house and corn crib with the same result, except that
we find about three pounds of dried apples and half a pound of raisins. Galloway, who
knows Emmett [sic] better than I says, 'I believe the old cuss has kept the money and
purposely forgot the supplies.' If so, it is very awkward, because we have but three or four
pounds of flour, very little coffee, no baking powder, bacon, or anything else. In fact it is
an aggravating situation. When I was planning this trip I wrote to Emmett [sic] who then
lived here and whom I knew, sending him a check for fifty dollars, with the request that he
have ready for us at the time of our probable arrival enough provisions, flour, bacon, one
ham, coffee, baking powder, et cetera, for five men for ten days, also in case he should be
away to cache the stuff, properly boxed, at the upstream side of the stone fort. This he
wrote he would do." Julius F. Stone, Canyon Country; the Romance of a Drop of Water and a
Grain of Sand (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1932), pp. 83-84.
Ironically, Rider says that a few days after Stone had left, an Indian came with the supplies. Stone didn't know this until twenty-one years later when Rider and Stone met in
Columbus, Ohio, at Rider's instigation and Stone honored him with a banquet.
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the next day. I didn't know. Well, nevertheless, I gave them that and they decided to go. They estimated that by doubling their daily traveling hours and with scant rations they would be able to make it.
Mr. Stone, during the time of our searching, had unloaded everything from the three boats and had dried out all the wet equipment and discarded every possible item that he thought would be unnecessary for the hazardous journey through the Grand Canyon. Now they reloaded their boats and every pound of equipment not absolutely necessary was left on shore. About one o'clock, after a scanty
meal of rice and bread, they bade me goodbye. They got into their boats and buttoned up around their necks a waterproof jacket which was attached to the boat with fastenings. The boats had been built
in Grand Rapids, Michigan, especially for this trip, and contained watertight compartments in either end. They also contained waterproof food compartments. Mr. Stone manned the first boat, Mr. Galloway the second, the photographer and boatman manned the third boat, and in this order they rowed out into the river and swung their boats into the halfmile rapids. I mounted my gray saddle horse; I had to ride along the bank at quite a trot and a slow gallop sometimes to keep up with them. 32 This was really an experience for me as I expected all of them to be lost before they reached the quiet water at Marble Canyon at the end of the rapids. They were expert boatsmen and kept a distance between them of thirty or forty yards, following the course set by Mr. Stone. I saw each of them disappear in one extra bad spot but they reappeared and soon entered the box canyon at the entrance
to the Grand Canyon area. I had ridden my horse out onto a large flat shelf protruding about
a foot above the water level and extending into the center of the river about twenty feet, and was waving and shouting goodbye and good luck, when to my surprise, all three boats swung into the eddy
below the projection on which I was and rowed their boats right up to me. They unfastened their jackets and all came out upon the rock with me. They gave up the trip. Stone said he'd decided they
~2Stone records: uThursday, October 28, 1909 ... And so at 1:23 P.M., having had a light lunch, we start. Mr. Ryder [sic] ... [is] on the bank to see us run the first rapid which we do in a little over four minutes, and at its foot say good-by to Ryder [sic] who has ridden along the bank at a gallop." Ibid., p. 84.65 wouldn't go. No mail for them, no nothing there, no food. So I says, ttyou guys are crazy. You go on down there and you'll find all kinds of food down that canyon." I'd ridden every point all along there and I'd seen a few mountain sheep up high on the Marble Canyon ledges, way up. But I'd never seen anything in the bottom because no one had ever been down there since Powell went through.
But I thought they certainly would find something. I was just a kid, you know, I was only eighteen. I've kept the Word of Wisdom all of my life and I've been prompted so many times that saved my life-maybe I was prompted to tell them that they would find food. I don't know. I was just an ordinary cowboy, I didn't know if there was anything but grasshoppers there, if that. But anyway, I says,
You go ahead, Mr. Stone." After they had shaken hands and left again, I was sure that I was going to be the cause of their death. I hoped that they'd change their minds again and come back, but as they disappeared around abend, I reluctantly turned back to my camp in the orchard and soaked my blistered hands. My humble prayer to God that night, as I crawled in my blankets and closed my eyes, was that they would make it through the canyon. But I didn't think they would. I didn't know that their trip had been successful until I got back to Kanab, six or eight months or a year later, where there were letters and a picture he had taken of me waiting there.33 But ironically enough, it wasn't until twenty-one years later in August, 1930, that I was informed at a banquet given in my honor as the guest ofJulius
F. Stone in Columbus, Ohio, that my predictions of food for their journey came true. Mr. Stone addressed an audience of 250 men and said, uThis cowboy saved our lives by predicting that we would find food down the river. Through an act of Divine Providence, we found five head of domestic sheep about twenty-five miles below Lee's Ferry. We preserved every bit of that meat by drying it and boiling it and making jerky out of it and it supplied us with ample provisions for the balance of the expedition."34

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