In the middle of the afternoon we passed a ranch or a house with a little garden, occupied by two miners, who hailed us from the shore.  A half-mile below was the Scanlon Ferry, a binding tie between Arizona, on the south and what was now Nevada, on the north, for we had reached the boundary line shortly after emerging from the canyon.  We still travelled nearly directly west.  The ferry was in charge of a Cornishman who also had as pretty a little ranch as one could expect to find in such an unlikely place.  A purling stream of water, piped from somewhere up in the hills, had caused the transformation.  The ranch was very homey with cattle and horses, sheep and hogs, dogs and cats, all sleek and contented-looking.  The garden proved that this country had a warm climate, although we were not suffering from heat at that time.  An effort was being made to grow some orange trees, but with little promise of success; there were fig trees and date-palms, with frozen dates hanging on the branches, one effect of the coldest winter they had seen in this section.

The rancher told us he could not sell us anything that had to be brought in, for it was seventy miles to the railroad, but we could look over such supplies as he had.  It ended by his selling us a chicken, two dozen eggs, five pounds of honey, and ten pounds of flour,—­all for $2.50.  We did not leave until the next morning, then bought another jar of honey, for we had no sugar, and two-thirds of the first jar was eaten before we left the ferry.

We pulled away in such a hurry the next morning that we forgot an axe that had been carried with us for the entire journey.  A five-hour run brought us to the mouth of the Virgin River, a sand-bar a mile wide, and with a red-coloured stream little larger than Cataract Creek winding through it.  We had once seen this stream near its head waters, a beautiful mountain creek, that seemed to bear no relation to this repulsive-looking stream that entered from the north.  A large, flat-topped, adobe building, apparently deserted, stood off at one side of the stream.  This was the head of navigation for flat-bottomed steamboats that once plied between here and the towns on the lower end of the river.  They carried supplies for small mines scattered through the mountains and took out cargoes of ore, and of rock salt which was mined back in Nevada.

It was here at the Virgin River that Major Powell concluded his original voyage of exploration.  Some of his men took the boats on down to Fort Mojave, a few miles above Needles; afterwards two of the party continued on to the Gulf.  The country below the Virgin River had been explored by several parties, but previous to this time nothing definite was known of the gorges until this exploration by this most remarkable man.  The difficulties of this hazardous trip were increased for him by the fact that he had lost an arm in the Civil War.

It is usually taken for granted that the United States government was back of this exploration.  This was true of the second expedition, but not of the first.  Major Powell was aided to a certain extent by the State College of Illinois, otherwise he bore all the expense himself.  We received $10,000 from the government to apply on the expenses of the second trip.