The Arizona sentinel., 1886-06-05

twenty feet higher than the floor of the basin, and its broken and jagged sides offered climber an easy way up. We stopped for awhile to survey the great mass, and to imagine what crash it must have made when it rolled down, and then passed into the canon proper. Just about this time the rain began to pour down with great vigor, and our enthusiasm for exploration was good deal dampened.
 Mills gathered various specimens of rock as we stumbled along the rift, and at spot where a large slab of sand stone offered opportunity we stopped and cut our names in the soft rock. By and by the way became so gloomy that we decided to turn back, the more espe- cially as the terrific rain was sending stream of water down the center of the rift. This stream kept growing in size until it had become a respectable creek as it reached the basin. There it took a sweep to the left of the big rock and rushed out to join the Laramie, which stream made bend toward us just in front of the basin, and was only three hundred feet away.
 'I never saw it rain harder. The roar of the falling drops on the rocks was enough to prevent all conversation, and our sole aim was to find some sort of shelter We got it under one side of the big rock have spoken of. A shelf projected out far enough to shelter our bodies, and we drew our legs up and sat there for the next half hour as dumb as oysters. All of sudden, with no more warning than a snap of the finger, wave of water flooded in on us, and literally washed us out. As we went out from under the shell we found the basin to be a lake, with the water waist deep. The big rock was our only hoFe, but we had to drop our guns as we pulled ourselves up. The waters followed us, and we paused not until we reached the top. From there we looked down on strange sight The Laramie river was pouring into the basin from one side and the canon was sending r.ver in from the other, and by the time we gained the crest the water around us was twelve or fifteen feet deep.
 "We had not yet spoken when we caught sight of the bod es of our horses being whirled around in the basin, and next moment we saw the heads of half dozen Indians dotting the water. The two rivers flowing into the basin created sort of whirlpool, and, though the redskins were swimming bravely, they could not break out of it. At one point, where the current swept past the rocky side, they would clutch and hang in the most desperate manner. but only to be swept along again after moment. They made the most tremendous efforts to break through the circle and reach our rock, but it was in vain. We looked down upon them until the last warrior gave up the unequal fight and sank from sight. Shortly after the last one disappeared the water in the basin suddenly went out until we could see the rocky bottom again, and soon after that the fierce rain was replaced by steady drizzle.
 ''It took us some little time to figure out how every thing had occurred. Soon after we left the basin a band of prowl- ing Indians had come along. They had seized our horses and removed them out of sight, and had then gone into am- bush to await our return. The fierce storm had produced landslide just be- low the basin, and the Laramie river had been temporarily damned up. This threw all its waters into the basin, and the overflow had been so sudden that the redskins could not escape. When the dam broke away, under the great pressure, the basin was soon emptied.
 ''The results of our specimen hunting were the loss of our firearms and horses; but we did not complain. But for the flood we should have lost just as much and our scalps besides. "-M. r. Ssl7