Provided with boats, life-lines, and other accessories, the men started from Cimarron on their perilous trip. On the third day their provisions gave out, and later they were obliged to abandon their boats and nearly everything else except their blankets, which were protected in rubber bags. They knew it was impossible to retrace their steps and that their only salvation lay in going on. At night they rolled themselves up in their blankets and tried to encourage one another. They travelled fourteen miles between granite walls from two thousand to three thousand feet high; and for sixteen days they were almost without food. Then they came to a cleft in their prison walls which seemed to offer a means of escape. At their feet the water plunged over a precipice down to an unknown depth. To go on meant almost instant death. They were dying of starvation. Should they go on? They had not accomplished their task. Life was sweet and there were loved ones dependent upon them for support. So they decided to attempt escape while they had strength. Wearily they climbed the steep and rugged path that led them to freedom. Starting early in the morning, they reached the summit, two thousand five hundred feet above the raging torrent, at nine o'clock at night. They were ready to drop in their tracks, yet hope inspired them to renewed exertions. They struggled on fifteen miles more ere they staggered into a farm-house on the verge of collapse. In the following year, 1901, the United States Government, becoming interested in diverting the waters of the Gunnison, sent out one of its engineers, Professor Fellows, to look into the practicability of the project. After looking over the field, the government engineer succeeded in enlisting in his service Mr. Torrence, who was a member of the first expedition. They planned to accomplish the feat which the former explorers failed to accomplish, namely, to go entirely through Black Canyon. Profiting by the previous trip, they provided for themselves a complete equipment, consisting of a rubber raft, two long life-lines, rubber bags for food and clothing, a camera, hunting-knives, and belts. Until they reached the water-falls where the previous expedition had left the canyon, the "Fall of Sorrow," the first part of their trip possesses little of interest beyond what had been experienced before. But from this point on unknown dangers menaced them.