This was a bitter disappointment as they found the river open all the way down, and we so found it afterwards below. Here was another strange occurrence. In exploring as in hunting there is an element of chance which cannot be provided against. No foresight will avail, no calculations will detect, no energy will overcome. Caution might prevent, but with caution no results will be obtained. Risks must be taken, and there is such an element in human affairs as fortune, good or bad. I decided at once to make all possible speed to Fort Hall, there refit and returning bring lumber to rebuild the boat on the ground where it had been lost, and continue to Eagle Rock Bridge on the Snake River, previously going back far enough beyond Jackson’s Lake to take a renewal of the system of triangulation and notes, lost in the river when the boat capsized. At Eagle Rock Bridge it would be necessary to rebuild the boat again in a different form and much larger, to run the heavy rapids of the lower rivers to Astoria, at the mouth of the great Columbia. The hardships and greater dangers we had already passed. With food for one day more we could have made the passage of “Mad River Canyon” despite the loss of all our weapons, instruments, and tools. We had run all the rapids but two, and these were easier than many others safely passed above. All the party enthusiastically endorsed this plan. Lieutenant Doane was indeed a persevering and meticulously thorough individual, so much so that he not only planned to return to run the river from the point where he had been obliged to leave off, but to retrace his route to a point above Jackson Lake in order to bring his notes to completion. It is difficult to follow his thinking when he indicates his intention of running the Columbia to Astoria, since his orders were to “make exploration of Snake River from Yellowstone Lake _to_ Columbia River.” His statement that the “greater dangers” had already been passed seems incompatible with the Hell’s Canyon of the Snake below, a section of the river about which Doane must have had some knowledge. Here indeed were “risks to be taken” with “bad fortune” certain, quite probably occurring beyond a point of no return. The party continued on December 29 toward Fort Hall, with Doane’s journal describing in detail the route followed, the nature of the terrain, and the course of the river. They arrived at Fort Hall on January 4, having been met about half way between Fort Hall and the Eagle Rock Bridge by ambulances sent to bring them. Captain Bainbridge, Commanding Officer at Fort Hall, ... received us with the greatest kindness, and everything possible was done for the comfort of myself and party, by all at the post. There followed an exchange of communications between the Lieutenant and the Commanding Officer at Fort Ellis, Major Brisbin, with no reference therein to the charge of desertion. In the meantime, Doane records,