Here was disaster indeed! Monett's boat had been thrown by a heavy wave into a cleft between two jagged rocks. The craft was wedged in so tightly that he could have done little to release her if she had been "high and dry," but as it was he was literally a prisoner in the rushing waters, and how to rescue him was the question to be answered--and answered quickly. How Russell performed this brave feat is best told in his own words: "Monett, with his boat wedged tightly between two rocks, whose tops were about a foot below the sweeping water, was hanging desperately to the gunwales of the little craft--his body straightened out horizontally by the rush of the current. The boat was completely wrecked, but when I threw the rope to him I was astounded to see the boy carefully work his way closer to the craft and begin to tie its contents securely to the one means of saving his own life. [Illustration: MONETT AND RUSSELL AT BRIGHT ANGEL TRAIL, SHOWING HOW MONETT TRAVELLED AS "DECK PASSENGER." _From a Photo. by Fred Harvey._] "So loud was the roar of the rapids that it was useless for me to yell to him to let the provisions go and save himself. Four times he made me haul sides of bacon and sacks of beans through the thirty feet of rushing water between him and the shore, before he finally caught the rope himself and let me drag him to safety. He had been in the water more than twenty minutes, and was nearly exhausted when I helped him to his feet." The loss of the boat seemed at first to mark the end of their attempt to equal the record of their predecessors, but Monett insisted that they should try the plan of carrying him astride on the stern of the surviving boat. "If we strike too rough water, I can always swing overboard," he urged, "and we've needed a drag that wouldn't get fouled in the rocks all along."