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The Great Gold Rush: A Tale of the Klondike

by W. H. P. Jarvis · English · Gutenberg #35486 · 402,173 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Great Gold Rush: A Tale of the Klondike

Author: W. H. P. Jarvis


        
Release date: March 4, 2011 [eBook #35486]

Language: English

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THE GREAT GOLD RUSH

A Tale of the Klondike


[Illustration: cover]

       *       *       *       *       *

FIRST EDITION       April, 1913
Reprinted        November, 1913

       *       *       *       *       *


THE GREAT GOLD RUSH

A Tale of the Klondike

by

W. H. P. JARVIS

Author of "Letters of a Remittance Man"







Toronto
The Macmillan Co. of Canada,
Limited
1913




  TO

  COLONEL SAMUEL BENFIELD STEELE
  C.B., M.V.O., A.D.C.

  ONE TIME OFFICER COMMANDING
  THE
  NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE IN THE
  YUKON TERRITORY

  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
  AS A
  TOKEN OF AFFECTIONATE REGARD




PREFACE


There is a freemasonry among Klondikers which rules that no tales shall
be told out of school. If, therefore, this were an historical novel, if
I were telling tales and seeking to escape censure by the subterfuge of
changing names, I could hardly succeed. Let me take the case of Poo-Bah,
for instance. The reader with a knowledge of the early days of Dawson
accepting the story as historical, would fix as the original any one of
half a dozen men indecently caricatured. But if he is told the character
is a composite one, that it is the personification of Dawson graft, or,
in other words, that it is the sum of a merger, he will understand and,
I think, make no complaint.

Otherwise the story may be accepted as the author's best effort to
convey a true account of the different phases of the world's most
remarkable stampede. The stories of corruption among the officials in
Dawson are those which a visitor would have heard on every hand, and at
the present time there are many old-timers in the Yukon who will tell
tales similar to the incidents I have introduced in my story.

When one of my characters speaks of the Dawson officials as petty
larceny thieves and highway robbers, it is to be understood to be a
sample of the phraseology in vogue at the time.

The different types of prospector I have attempted to portray are those
I have met, lived with, and mixed with. Should it appear I have given
too much space to the humble economies of the miner's life, I shall
advance as my excuse the lack of our literature in this particular.

I have also made a humble attempt to establish the respectability of the
miner. So much has been written to compromise him, and so many
imaginations have drawn lurid pictures of his morals, I feel it his due.

In a general way the reader may accept anything in my story which has
none other than an historical interest as being accurate.

I am indebted to the Rev. Archdeacon Macdonald, now of Winnipeg, for the
story of his first discovery of gold. For the story of the discovery of
Franklin Gulch I am indebted to Mr. William Hartz, who also furnished
the accounts of the finding of gold in the Stewart River. These accounts
have never before been written.

                                                             W. H. P. J.

TORONTO, CANADA.
  _January_ 1913.




                  CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                            PAGE

        I. THE FORTUNE-SEEKERS.         1
       II. JOHN BERWICK                11
      III. THE BEGINNING OF YUKON      21
       IV. SOCIETY IN ALASKA           30
        V. SOAPY'S LITTLE GAME         38
       VI. HITTING THE TRAIL           48
      VII. HUGH'S PHILOSOPHY           62
     VIII. OVER THE SUMMIT             71
       IX. STORM AND STRESS            80
        X. AN EMPIRE'S OUTPOST         90
       XI. ANOTHER PASS                95
      XII. A NEW PARTNER              107
     XIII. THE DANCE                  115
      XIV. A LONG SHOT                126
       XV. REVELATION                 133
      XVI. A STREAM OF HISTORY        137
     XVII. DAWSON                     149
    XVIII. POO-BAH!                   158
      XIX. GRAFT                      170
       XX. A LOTTERY                  182
      XXI. THE PEELS' HOSPITAL        194
     XXII. THE LAST STRAW             201
    XXIII. REVOLUTION                 214
     XXIV. WITHIN THE BARRACKS        223
      XXV. RECRUITING                 230
     XXVI. LOCATED                    236
    XXVII. THE WOOD-PILE              244
   XXVIII. A COUNCIL OF WAR           251
     XXIX. STONY GROUND               257
      XXX. ON THE SCENT               265
     XXXI. AN ODIOUS DILEMMA          274
    XXXII. A DERELICT                 280
   XXXIII. TRIBUTE                    286
    XXXIV. NO SURRENDER               294
     XXXV. THE MAN WITH THE POUCH     299
    XXXVI. AFTER THE CRISIS           307
   XXXVII. OIL ON TROUBLED WATERS     313
  XXXVIII. REUNION                    319
    XXXIX. RETROSPECTION              325
       XL. THE HAPPY ENDING           331




THE GREAT GOLD RUSH




CHAPTER I

THE FORTUNE-SEEKERS


Those who join the stampede to a new goldfield may generally be divided
into two classes, the tenderfoot and the old-timer; otherwise, the
novice and the experienced prospector.

The novice joins the stampede because he catches the "fever"--dreams
dreams. The old-timer goes because the diggings he had last worked in
proved of little good.

Were the sea-dogs of old--Drake, Raleigh, or Frobisher--born into the
world to-day, their spirit would surely have impelled them to the mining
camp, to seek fortune in the mountain fastnesses, and to wager years of
effort on the chance of wresting from Nature her treasure stores.

On the steamship _Aleutian_, as she lay in the dock at Vancouver,
British Columbia, one day in the March of 1898, there were many
tenderfeet and a few old-timers. Amongst the experienced was John
Berwick. About him surged the steamship's host of passengers, waving
their arms, and yelling answers to the cheer that went up from the great
crowd upon the dock-side.

He and his fellows were bound for the Klondike goldfields. Before them
lay adventures, toil, and danger; the adventurous will ever draw the
tributes of goodwill from the multitude staying at home.

The air was chill and damp; and the increased speed of the steamer as
she passed from the harbour accentuated the effect of the breeze that
blew against her, so that Berwick felt cold. He shivered, and half
turned towards the door across the promenade; but the wavelets, flying
by in their half-blue, half-grey ripples, fascinated him, and he
lingered. Suddenly he was aroused--a hand was on his shoulder, and he
heard a familiar voice say,

"Hullo, old chum!"

John swung round. He looked into the smiling face of his old-time
mining-mate, George Bruce.

"George, by all the gods!" he cried. "Are you bound for the diggings,
too?"

"Yes, and mighty glad to find an old mate. I told you, when you left
Coolgardie, that you wouldn't stand civilization long, but had no idea
of running across you in this rush."

The two turned and entered the saloon together. Neither mentioned it,
but each knew that in the adventures before them their efforts and their
fortunes would be joined. In the language of the Australian, they were
mates, or, in the vernacular of their new surroundings, "partners."

George Bruce was tall and athletic, with golden hair. He was a jovial
soul, blessed with a body of activity. He would go for the hardest work
in a cheery way, and during the social hours of evening was the best of
company. He was as liberal with his money and means as he was of
good-nature.

The saloon was crowded with men, drifting about, staring at all they
met, or talking in groups. On the lower deck dogs could be heard
barking. The ship was tense with an atmosphere of excitement.

Berwick and his "pardner" went by a companion-way to the lower deck,
where they found a passage-way to the fore-part of the ship, and so came
to the presence of the canine choir. Big dogs and little dogs, of every
breed and colour, were there. All grades of canine society were
represented, from the big and well-fed St. Bernard to the mongrel snared
in the slums. Dogs were a safe investment in the towns on the Pacific
Coast of North America, and unscrupulous humanity was actively at work
capturing them and getting them there.

The portion of the deck to which the dogs were relegated was also set
apart for the baggage, which was piled in heaps in the middle. A dozen
men were diving into kit-bags, extracting necessary articles or packing
them away. The inspiration of the last few minutes in Vancouver had
prompted many to purchase odds and ends which had been forgotten in the
general outfitting.

A tall, angular man was attending to three dogs of an uncommon breed.
Two of them were practically of the same size, which was that of an
ordinary collie; the third was not so large. All had the same markings,
black with tan about the face and neck, and a show of tan about the
legs, but the hair on the two larger was longer than on the third. This
couple also had bushy tails which curled over their backs, while the
tail of the smaller dog was only a stump. John recognized them from
their wolfish look as belonging to a Northern breed. George and he
became interested.

After watching the dogs for a minute, John approached one of them and
patted him, remarking to his owner, "Your dogs don't seem
over-affectionate."

"No."

"They don't make much noise."

"These dogs never bark."

"Why is that?"

"Don't know; suppose it is because they have wolf in them; but they howl
when the spirit moves them."

"Often?"

"Only when they are alone, and then generally at night."

The conversation was lapsing when the stranger turned and gazed at the
mountains showing through the mist along the coast.

"Those mountains look kind o' cold," said he. "You fellows going
inside?"

"Yes," answered John.

"Come from Australia?" The stranger had evidently been sizing them up.
"There are a whole lot going inside from Australia, I hear."

"The only man I know on board is George Bruce here, my mate; but there
is such a crowd about--there may be others!"

"The passes are already crowded--a whole lot of these fellows don't know
what they are up against." The man shook his head with an aspect of
melancholy.

"Been in the Klondike before?" Berwick asked him.

"Yes, five years ago. I came down from the River in '96, just before
the news of Carmack's discovery reached Forty Mile, or else I would have
been in on the best of it. The fellows sent me out word right after, but
I didn't think the pay streak would hold, so didn't go in last year. But
this spring I got so dead sick of civilization I just had to get away,
although I don't think there's much chance of my striking it rich."

"Your dogs are Yukon dogs?"

"Yes, Malamoots. I brought them out with me just to kind of keep me from
getting homesick, but they worked the other way. I took them back on the
home ranch, and every time they set up a howl on winter nights I began
to see the old Northern Lights sky-shooting overhead, and smell the
bean-pot boiling, and I'd feel like getting down a hole to bed-rock
somewhere and trying a pan of dirt. Besides, the folks outside, I don't
like their ways; they ask a man so many fool questions. They all want to
know why I ain't a millionaire. You see I've been up to Bonanza Creek
where Carmack made his discovery, and where the rich claims have been
discovered, a dozen times. We used to call it Rabbit Creek, and there
were always a half-dozen moose or so mooching round, and we used to go
shooting then."

"Didn't you ever try a dish of gravel?" asked George, for the first
time entering the conversation.

The stranger looked at him, and evidently did not understand. John
cleared the situation by saying, "I think what you call a pan we call a
dish in Australia."

"Oh, yes, I've panned it often enough; but could not get more than a few
colours to the pan of dirt. Fellows writing me say they go down through
twenty feet of black muck before they strike the gravel and bed-rock. I
was not looking for any proposition like that. How Carmack found out the
gold was underneath I don't know."

The two friends bade their new acquaintance good evening, and returned
to the saloon. All the seats were occupied, and there were yet groups of
men standing about, but the excitement was less. They passed on to the
smoking-room, at the fore-part of the ship. This was crowded, and the
air thick. A large man in a white sweater was holding forth. He was
stout almost to corpulency, and extended his fist excitedly in the
ardour of his argument.

"I tell you, gentlemen," he was saying, "I come from the State of
I-dee-ho. We have big mountains in I-dee-ho, with lots of snow on them
in winter. I've lived among these mountains for twenty years, and I know
what snow is; and you bet your life if there is one man who will get
into the Yukon it is John Muggsley! Big Jack they called me back home.
It's a big man who is needed on a trip like this, a fellow who can put a
couple of hundred pounds on his back and walk off with it as if it were
nothing. I tell you this is not a proposition for any tenderfoot to
tackle!"

"Well," said another man, "I don't want any packing so far as I am
concerned. I have two cows with me, both good milkers, and I will load
my stuff on their backs and drive them over the pass. I can have their
milk to drink, and when I get to Lake Bennett I'll kill them and sell
their meat."

John and George had seen those cows. Poor cows! Poor man! So it was with
a large portion of the passengers. With the excitement and the thirst
for gold the most quixotic ideas had been developed. What the cows were
to live upon en route had not yet been considered! Such is the haste
with which an idea is acted upon when the gold-fever has seized its
victim.

Others there were who had machine-propelled devices designed to travel
over ice and snow, or on dry land. These machines were manufactured and
sold by keen-witted salesmen to the inexperienced and confiding.

After dinner, that first evening out of port, John and George fell into
conversation with the owner of the Malamoots. They had seized two of the
cots erected in the saloon; and their new friend, seeing them, had taken
one next to them. His greeting was friendly.

"Well, gentlemen, getting located?"

"Yes."

"Good act!"

The three were soon in deep conversation, discussing gold-mining as
prosecuted in Australia and in the Yukon. After an hour or two they
strolled forward between the cots, stepping over sacks and bags and
articles of clothing spread upon the floor. They passed several tables
at which games of cards were being played.

"The tin-horns are getting down to business," remarked the stranger.

"What are they playing?" asked George.

"Black Jack, the great game for the tenderfoot. It is so easily learned,
so easy to cheat at, too; and these greenhorns will get robbed-blind."

"Their eyesight will be improved by the loss of their money," remarked
John.

"A fool never learns," said the stranger.

They entered the smoking-room, and found Muggsley still holding forth,
"Gentlemen, you just watch me and see how soon I get over these here
mountains. It's experience that counts in this kind of work."

The man who had the cows, and he who was the proud possessor of the
Klondike ice-locomotive were listening with some disdain; but the dozen
other listeners were open-mouthed in envy and astonishment at wonderful
Muggsley.

The three passed out on deck. The wind was chill, a frizzle was in the
air, and the waves, breaking in dull phosphorescence against the bow of
the ship, looked sickly and uncanny through the blackness. "A dangerous
coast--the insurance rate for ships travelling this route is fifteen per
cent.," remarked the stranger.

John Muggsley was still shaking his fist vociferously in the faces of
his listeners as the party returned from deck to seek their beds.

"Good-night, you fellows. Glad I met you. My name's Hugh Spencer," the
stranger said, as he settled in his cot.

"The same to you!" answered the others.

The freemasonry of the gold-seeker holds throughout the world, and its
handshake is honest. Three gold-seekers have been introduced to the
reader in this chapter; and these pages will tell something of what
befell them in what was probably the most spectacular gold-rush in the
history of the world.

John Berwick, who is by way of being our hero, shall have a chapter to
himself.




CHAPTER II

JOHN BERWICK


Like most men whose success in life is largely the whim of fortune, John
Berwick had for years accepted her rulings without protest, and regarded
passing little incidents as signs of her influence.

One night in the December preceding his setting out for the Klondike, he
was lying in his bunk on Judas Creek--one of the innumerable streams in
British Columbia in which colours of gold, otherwise "prospects" could
be found--reading a month old newspaper that a trapper, who had passed
the previous night with him, had brought from the settlement, and in its
columns had found an item of news telling of the recent rich discoveries
in the Yukon. He read the paragraph carefully again and again, striving
to separate exaggeration from truth, and to satisfy himself that there
was truth in it.

By the camp stove sat Joe, the French-Canadian whom he employed,
smoking and gazing at the glow of the fire with stolid and witless eyes.
He would sit thus for hours; to a man of Berwick's temperament he was a
satisfactory companion. On the Claim things had gone none too well.
True, by great effort they had reached bed-rock at thirty feet, and were
beginning to cross-cut in search of a pay-streak. There was certainly
little gold in the gravel on the bed-rock already uncovered, and the
flow of water into the working was very great: indeed, as much time was
taken in keeping the shaft free of water as in all their other works
combined. And up to three days previously rain had been incessant,
though relief was apparently at hand, owing to the frost that had
succeeded. The earth had hardened; Judas Creek was already flowing in
less volume, and the boulders in the stream were becoming massed with
ice.

Berwick had been but a few months on Judas Creek, having essayed to try
his fortune in Canada's most western province. Fortune meant much to
him--for lack of it hindered his marriage with the one necessary girl,
Alice Peel, the only daughter of Surgeon-Major Peel. This was one cause
of his presence on the frontier: another was that he and his religion
had "fallen out" years ago. His father had intended him for the Church,
and here he was....

"The Creek is falling rapidly, we can hardly hear it now," remarked
John.

"Dat's so," was Joe's reply. He was laconic.

John's thoughts went back to his prospects. Much of his small capital
had gone into the works. Joe was not in love--he had no capital save his
strength of body, and his religion was negligible. When first this
French-Canadian had arrived in British Columbia, and started work in a
saw-mill, he had refused to work on Sunday, until the foreman told him
that the devil never crossed the Rocky Mountains--which silenced his
scruples. For sure, the Rocky Mountains were very high!

"I think we should empty the shaft to-morrow with seventy or
seventy-five buckets."

"I guess dat's so."

Again Berwick relapsed into silence, and kept his mind on his many
problems: had he or had he not better throw up his Judas Creek Claim,
and strike out for the scene whence came these wonderful tales?

The volume of the Creek was diminishing with abnormal rapidity. For
three days now frost had been upon the canyon, and the flying spray had
frozen upon the boulders. The rushing, gurgling stream, falling over
rocks and sunken logs, had during that time been sucking down bubbles of
cold air, which sealed the fine ice particles to the river bed. For
miles Judas Creek was lined with anchor ice, encasing the rocks with a
coating, sickly, white, insidious. In the darkness the opaque ice seemed
to shine out in phosphorescence; in fact, it threw back the light of the
stars overhead, which seemed to have lowered themselves in the
heavens--so bright and grand were they.

At a point a mile below the little pool where the nucleus of the mass
now filling the river-bed had formed, a tree was stretched across the
torrent. It had fallen into the stream above, and floated down until it
jammed, holding back the current. The avalanche--as the thickening
stream had now become--found this tree, and swept against it but a
second, when it snapped. Now the flow of the river became a seething
mass of ice and sticks--four feet high--travelling at the rate of
several miles an hour, picking up all that came in its way. It passed
the mouth of several tributaries, which lent it increase of force: still
its speed quickened: the grinding noise increased--logs, sticks, masses
of ice and great roots of trees appeared for an instant on its surface
and sank again. Now the wave was five feet--now six feet
high--broadening out, gaining yet in speed, still more effectually
holding back the river's flow.

The gradual silencing of the river's roar was getting on the nerves of
John Berwick, who was miles down-stream, far below the ice-flow. The
river had tapered into a little rill.

When a certain noise has been a companion for days and days, and is
suddenly stilled, a sense of uneasiness results, as when on a steamer
the throb of the engine ceasing will rouse sleepers from their slumber.
The slowing down of the torrent in Judas Creek made Berwick restless. He
did not at first recognize what it was that worried him.

Joe also seemed as if he were not altogether proof against the spell; at
last, he took his stare from the stove and looked around the cabin.

"I t'ink something pretty soon happen, by gosh!"

John stared at him; for Joe to volunteer a remark was unusual: it
increased his employer's apprehension.

Berwick returned to his newspaper, fascinated by its news. A party of
miners had arrived in San Francisco bringing much gold from some unknown
region of the north. They called it the Klondike.

Would his Judas Creek Claim ever pay him for his efforts? What were his
chances of fortune? Masses of gold or mountains of dust? He was in
search of fortune--with a big "F."

His thoughts naturally drifted to the girl he wanted to marry. She was
the daughter of luxury and wealth. He was just a prospector, no more in
the eyes of Dame Fortune than the sturdy natural by the stove: in fact,
experience had led him to believe that in the mining enterprise Fortune
had a partiality for such men as Joe.

Berwick had been five years at the mining game. He had drifted from one
camp to another: over America, to Australia, back to America. He had
possibly become something of a cynic; certainly his mind had hardened
with his muscles. He dreamed dreams. What would his lady say if she
received a letter, saying he was again pulling stakes, and had left
Judas Creek in order to avoid being defeated? He whistled, and shrugged
his strong shoulders. He did not know!

He put some practical thoughts together. The Klondike was evidently in
the North, far inland, in Canada. Could he withstand great cold? Yes, he
could; he could endure and do anything as any other normal strong man
could; and could go anywhere that was practicable to humanity. This was
not vanity, not conceit, but just healthy self-confidence.

Should he pull up stakes and leave his Judas Creek Claim to the coyotes?
As this question once more came to his mind, he was aware of the
complete silence now outside, and letting his paper fall, bent his head
to listen. Joe was listening also. Judas Creek was absolutely still.

Joe arose and opened the cabin door. His employer joined him there.
There was no sound from the Creek; there was no Creek.

"By gosh! dat's funnee t'ing," Joe exclaimed.

"I certainly do not know how to account for it," said Berwick. He felt
apprehensive.

They returned from the cabin door: Joe going to his seat by the stove,
Berwick putting his bed in order for the night, when Joe jumped up and
ran to the door again. A dull distant roar was heard.

"By gosh! By gosh! I got it! He's a river snow-slide what's coming.
Quick, boss--quick! Get for hell out of dis! Pretty soon no more
cabin--no windlass--no, no bucket, only water! No not'ing--all gone!"

The man began hurriedly putting on his boots, and instinctively his
master followed his example, inquiring as he did so,

"What's that?"

"He's a river snow-slide, dat's all I know for to call him. A havalanche
on wheels, all turn over--over--over! Him carry away everything, bridge,
tree, dam--all sort of thing--everything go."

And as the sullen roar coming from the valley continued to increase, the
appreciation of approaching danger spread from the one to the other.
Berwick made haste and scrambled into his winter garb. Joe bundled
together his personal effects, and some of the more valuable of the
supplies in the cabin. Berwick did the same; out of the door they sprang
into the night, and up the hillside, under which their cabin was built.
Joe gave a sign when he considered they were out of danger. At once they
threw down their loads and rushed back to the cabin. Grabbing another
load they again sought the higher ground.

Meanwhile, the flood had broken from the canyon at the head of their
little valley. The timber there had been largely cut, and over the
rugged stumps the rolling mass spread, grinding, tearing up the weaker
roots.

Berwick and his companion sat and watched their home going to
destruction. Deliberately, it seemed, the mass of ice and water fell
upon their workings. There was a loud crack as the windlass went down;
and then the fury of water poured into their shaft. It was but for an
instant. The flood tore against their cabin. Would the cabin endure the
shock?

The answer soon came. There was a rending of timber; the cabin was
pushed before the ice; and then it seemed to melt away, swallowed up by
the flood. The lights went out. Lower and lower it sank, till the roof
was touched by the surging ice. Then that, too, went under, and nothing
but a fractured log or pole was left of the little home. John shivered.

The flood fell almost as quickly as it had risen, now that its work was
proved effectual. Berwick turned to look at his man. Joe was already
hard at work with an axe on a fallen tree, from which the chips flew.

There was no doubt about it now. The Judas Creek venture was a failure:
he could write it down as such. He had known many miners on whom Fortune
had smiled; drunken swine, many of them, to whom money appealed only as
a means to dissipation.

And he, to whom money--the price of his future home-happiness--meant so
much!

Joe struck a match, applied it to a handful of birch-bark, and the flame
sprang up.

By all the canons of his life, Berwick should have jumped into the fray
and helped Joe make their camp; but, after all, it was only a little
past nine o'clock.

Yes. Now he must throw up Judas Creek!

Joe laid twigs on top of the birch-bark and soon had a fire, to which he
added larger sticks and logs. Then he cut down a fir-tree and made a
bed, over which he spread the canvas of a tent and blankets. The night
was perfectly clear, they would be warm and snug enough beside the
fire.

Joe cut several more logs of wood and piled them near, after which he
sat down upon the blankets, took off his boots and coat, rolled this
into a pillow, and soon was asleep.

Berwick, sitting by the fire, watched far into the night. His fancy
played about the flames, calling up scenes of his youth, and conceiving
all manner of pictures of the miner's life in the sub-Arctic Klondike
that was to be.




CHAPTER III

THE BEGINNING OF YUKON


No more wonderful system of navigation probably exists on the globe than
that of the inland passage between Puget Sound and the Lynn Canal, at
the head of which are the towns of Skagway and Dyea, the respective
ports of the White and the Chilkoot Passes. For ten hundred miles the
steamers plying along this route run behind the great barrier of
islands, beginning with that of Vancouver and ending at Point Deception.
In summer the trip is grand beyond compare; in winter it is full of
gloom and awe.

As the ship travels northward the mountains grow greater, the narrow
passages narrower, till they develop as canyons, cut only by other
canyon-like passages to the sea, or by glacier-ridden valleys from the
mainland, whose mighty burdens shimmer in the sunlight as they yield in
torrents tributes to the parent ocean. In summer continuous light
reigns in the latitude of Skagway, and the traveller entering this weird
zone is moved by its uncanny beauty.

Winter was still on the land as the _Aleutian_ ploughed her way
northward, and the passengers saw the great walls of rock uplifting to
the clammy mantle of low-lying clouds. Here and there Indian villages
were passed and Indian graveyards, with flags flying from the stagings,
raised six or eight feet from the ground, on which reposed the deceased.

The ship called at Wrangle and unloaded freight and passengers. "This
town had a boom during the excitement of the Cassiar twenty years back,"
remarked Hugh Spencer to Berwick and Bruce, as the three stood on the
deck and watched the bustle between the steamer and the wharf.

"Let's stretch our legs up the quay," said George. They went ashore.
Squaws were sitting with baskets of their handiwork before them, doing a
lively trade with the disembarked passengers. The sales made were mostly
of moccasins in beads, and bark canoes adorned with porcupine quills of
brightest colours. Hugh stopped before an old squaw and picked up a pair
of large mittens with gauntlet attachments. They were made of canvas and
lined with red flannel.

"How much?" he inquired.

"Dollar two bits."

"Give you six bits."

"All right."

"Better take a couple of pair each, fellows; there's nothing like them
for the trail: look how big the thumbs are." So Hugh and his two
companions bought the whole of the squaw's store.

"There's nobody knows how to make mitts for real cold weather like the
Siwash. They make the thumbs good and big, so as not to stop
circulation; and we'll have some cold weather yet before we get over the
summit. But you have to beat the beggars down, as they always ask twice
as much as they expect to get. Here we paid only seventy-five cents a
pair for these mitts, and the squaw said she wanted a dollar and a
quarter for them."

"Are these Siwash[1] Indians?" inquired John.

[1] Corruption of the French _sauvage_.

"Well, we call them Siwashes; but they don't like it. The real Siwash
lives farther south, and the name, I believe, is one of contempt."

"They are different Indians from any I have seen on the plains," said
John.

"Oh, yes, very different. I guess their only resemblance is that they
are both good only when they are dead."

"You're pretty hard on them," was the remark of the good-natured John.

"Perhaps I am. You see, a tough outfit has been trading up here for
years from down the coast; and before that the Russians were here--and
they didn't put in most of their time building churches. They found a
dollar's worth of hootch would get more from the savages than a dollar's
worth of anything else; so they used whisky. The savage, when you find
him without the cussedness taught by the white man, makes a pretty good
citizen. He may be lazy, but he is honest; and perhaps his laziness is
only due to the fact that he has always had a klootch[2] to do chores
around, and has never been trained to the white man's ways of working;
but let any fellow try following an Indian on snow-shoes for a couple of
days, and his ideas soon change. He is not much good with a pick and
shovel for sure; but he is A1 on the trail. Another thing about the
Indian is that when one has grub they all have grub. This is the way of
the Stick Indians inside, and you can cache your grub in their country
or leave the things lying around, and they won't touch them."

[2] Squaw.

During the rest of the day John and his mates were in the company of
Hugh Spencer, listening to his tales of Yukon life: the glories of the
summer there, and the great cold of the winter, with the resources of
the miners to keep from despair. He told them the traditions of the
camps, and how the discoveries of '49 in California had been followed by
others in Oregon, British Columbia, the Fort Steele district (Wild Horse
Creek), Kettle River, Caribou, and, finally, in the Yukon.

"It wasn't a miner who was the first finder of gold in the Yukon; it was
a missionary. But the missionary did not follow up this discovery, which
makes a difference. However, I'll tell you the story, and it will let
you see a little of Siwash nature in the telling of it.

"The Rev. Robert Macdonald, Doctor of Divinity and Archdeacon of
MacKenzie River, was the first white man to find gold in the Yukon. Say!
I ain't got much use for missionaries as a general proposition, but
Archdeacon Macdonald is as white a man as ever lived, though he is east
of the Rocky Mountains now. I guess the reason I don't like missionaries
is that you can never do anything with the Siwashes, once a missionary
gets hold of them.

"Well, the Archdeacon--he wasn't Archdeacon then though--drifted down
the Porcupine, and took up his residence with the Hudson Bay Company
people at Fort Yukon in the year 1862, which was a few years before I
was born. You see the Hudson Bay people established themselves at Fort
Yukon in 1847. In 1842 Mr. J. Bell, in charge of the Hudson Bay Post on
the Peel River, which runs into the MacKenzie, from beyond the divide
from the head waters of the Porcupine, crossed over and went down the
Porcupine a way. In 1846 he followed it to its mouth, and saw the Yukon.
In the following year Mr. A. H. Murray built Fort Yukon, and set up
business. Well, it was here that the Archdeacon started to tell the
savages of the Great Spirit--and they were mighty interested.

"The savages had some sort of a tradition that a certain canyon, which
opened into the Yukon a short distance up stream from the Fort, was the
home of bad spirits; they could hear them groaning, and they asked the
missionary to 'put them wise.'[3] So when a bunch[4] arrived, one day in
July 1863, he trotted the whole outfit off to the canyon.

[3] Inform them.

[4] Bunch--Party.

"Of course the missionary found the noises were caused by the wind or
nothing, but, as the Siwashes said there were noises up the Creek, he
said it was the wind.

"Walking along the shore, the Archdeacon saw a bit of something shining
in the gravel and picked it up. It was a flake of gold sticking to a
piece of mica, of which there's lots in the Klondike country--mica
schist the scientists call it. So this was the first find of gold by a
white man; but the Company was not looking for gold-hunters in their
country, so the discovery was never followed up.

"The Siwash is A1 at asking questions--just about as bad as a
six-year-old kid; and if a medicine man comes among them it is
surprising what sort of conundrums they will bring him."

In this way John Berwick and his old-time mining-mate pleasantly passed
the hours listening to the conversation of Spencer, by whom they were
attracted.

On the third evening, at dinner--the three being seated together--they
noticed some movement beginning amongst those of the company who were
seated near the companion-way. Several were seen to rise and hurry away.
Quickly the excitement spread, the saloon was soon empty of most of its
feasters.

"Keep your seats, fellows; it's only some chechacho got the toothache,"
said Hugh. Shouts were heard, with a trampling and rush of feet on the
upper deck. "The only thing that could happen--outside of fire--would be
to run ashore or hit an iceberg. We are hardly far enough north for the
icebergs yet--besides, if we had hit one, or run ashore, we should know
it. If we caught fire, it would not be far to the shore anywhere along
this route; and it is always well not to get stampeded in any case."

After dinner the friends entered the main saloon, and found groups of
men talking excitedly, with others returning from the upper deck where
the life-boats were stored. To the upper deck they went, and there they
found Mr. Muggsley.

"I tell you, gentlemen, no officer or anybody else is going to keep me
from the life-boats when a ship is sinking. I don't care for anybody!
You stand by and let the officers and sailors run things--and they will
fill the boats with women and their own friends--and look out for
themselves. But I look out for John Muggsley! Big John Muggsley the boys
call me! And it's a case like this that makes me glad I'm big and
strong."

An excitable coal-heaver had found a stream of water entering by a
sea-cock, which had been left open through carelessness; and, running up
through the saloon to the boats, had started the excitement. Such
trivial circumstances often cause most disastrous panics; and likewise
tell tales of how certain men are made!

The ship eventually--after blinding snowstorms--entered Gastineau
Channel. To the left was the great line of stamp mills pounding out the
wealth of the mighty Treadwell quartz deposits on Douglas Island; to
the right was the pioneer town of Juneau, with its gambling-halls and
saloons enjoying the licence of the Alaska mining-camp.

The next stop for the ship was Skagway, where the sea journey would end
on the morrow. The passengers were alert and astir. From then on it was
to be a struggle.




CHAPTER IV

SOCIETY IN ALASKA


The weather had changed during the night; and as the two friends stepped
on deck the following morning a chill and cutting wind met them from the
north. Away above them towered the mountains, their peaks dazzling white
against the sky. Behind them, to the south, was the Lynn Canal, walled
with mountains. Before them were mountains, and yet more mountains. The
cluster of tents and hastily constructed buildings, resting on a few
square miles of gravel flats--comprising the town of Skagway--were
robbed of any importance by the great uplifting walls of rock.

As they stood a voice hailed them. "Is this Skagway?" It was Mr.
Muggsley who spoke.

"I fancy so," said John; "better ask the purser--here he comes."

"Do we have to climb those mountains to get to the Klondike?"

"Yes."

"But where is the White Pass?"

"There." The purser pointed to the mouth of a valley, which soon
appeared blocked by a mighty mountain.

"And that is the White Pass?"

"It is."

"Say, purser, is that berth I had taken for the trip down again? If not,
save it for me. I guess I'm wanted back in I-dee-ho."

Mr. Muggsley, the big man, the strong man, "Big Jack," as his friends
called him, was suddenly possessed of "cold feet." The great uplifting
mountains with their glittering peaks flung to heaven had quickened the
cowardice of his craven soul.

Berwick and his comrade struggled ashore through the rushing
freight-handlers and piled-up supplies. The freight which came from the
Canadian port, Vancouver, had to be passed by the United States Customs,
and the officers seemed few. There was a method of overcoming the
Customs--by employing a "convoy," an official of the United States
Customs, to escort the goods across the narrow strip into Canadian
territory again. John made inquiries, and addressed a fellow in a wild
garb, bespeaking a resident.

"Pay the duty, partner! These escort fellows are a bunch of grafters!
They ain't no credit to the United States, I can tell you. Yes, pay
duty, and hand an officer a ten-dollar bill on the side, or they'll keep
you here a week, you bet!"

John decided to pay the duty. The convoy would cost $5.00 per day and
expenses. He made an effort to get his goods passed, but without
success--till he paid the ten-dollar bribe. George did the same. John
did not like bribery; but--what else could he do?

It was afternoon ere they got through; and as they gained the town, a
rough board-building with a great white cloth sign painted on
it--"Restaurant, meals 50 cents"--met their gaze from the head of the
wharf. Other buildings of similar character composed generally this
section of the town, so they walked into the first.

It was a box of a place, as unfinished internally as externally. A dozen
or so men, perched on high stools, were leaning against a board counter
covered with white oilcloth. Behind the counter stood a woman and a
girl; a range, where the chef was operating, at their back. A board
partition divided off a sleeping apartment. The curtain that gave the
room privacy was but half drawn. Articles of clothing, trunks, and boxes
were strewn in disorder on the floor.

"Soup?" queried the lady as they took their seats. The cook filled two
flat tin plates with a watery solution of tomatoes and rice. This they
attacked. When the soup was finished two other tin plates were handed
them, laden with cubical chunks of beef and gravy. Dishes of potatoes
and boiled beans, with bread and butter in tin bowls, were lined upon
the counter for each man to help himself from. At the end of the second
course a plate, bearing a quarter section of sickly-looking apple-pie,
was slid over to each.

The old lady presiding wore the smile of prosperity, and looked
communicative, so John opened conversation. "Been in Skagway long?"

"Just a month."

"Doing well?"

"Sure thing! feed about three hundred people a day. Don't care if the
rush never lets up."

"You've got a gold-mine here without the trouble of going to Dawson."

"Sure!--that is if Soapy don't put the whole town out of business. He
makes the saloons and gambling-halls pay him royalty now, besides
running shows himself; and I guess he'll be after us soon to make us
anti-up too."

"I thought Alaska was a prohibition territory, no whisky sold here."

"Yes, that's what they say back East; but when you get up town you'll
find every second place a saloon with all the hootch you want to drink,
or have money to pay for."

"But how do they get the whisky?"

"Oh, that's easy enough. The hootch is consigned through to the Canadian
side in bond; but when it is landed here they drill a hole in the barrel
and take out the whisky. They refill the barrel with water, and it is
packed over the summit."

"But it costs thirty cents a pound to put the water over the summit!"

"That don't matter--with whisky fifty cents a glass over the bar."

"Don't the officers know this is going on?"

"Sure thing they do; but they 'stand in. There is no graft like a whisky
graft."

"Stand in" and "graft"!--the two Australians felt they knew the meaning
of the terms, but they had yet to grasp how deep the meaning of
"standing in" and "grafting," as understood by officialdom in Alaska and
the Yukon, could be.

Berwick and his friend ate their pie, and departed to see the sights.

The main street of the town ran due north and south, and was lined with
tents and buildings, finished and under construction. The street was
devoid of snow, except in patches here and there; the ever-persistent
wind from the north having generally swept the gravel clean. Sleighs,
drawn by dogs or horses, passed smoothly over the ice, but shrieked in
protest against the stone. Dogs and horses seemed everywhere in that
rush of fifty thousand men. No man could enter the Yukon without a
year's provisions, which meant that he must transport at least a
thousand pounds in every case.

Along the streets vehicles were waiting to transport vast stores of
supplies to White Pass City, twelve miles distant; after which dog-teams
alone, or pack-animals, or the labour of the human animal, were
necessary. Some pack-horses, mules, and burroes were passing down the
streets to their stables, after having carried up their loads.

Men in outlandish garb were walking about; many wore what appeared to be
night-shirts coming down to their knees, with hoods attached, and rings
of fur around the wrists and the face of the hood. Some of the peculiar
garments were made of blue drill, others even of bed-ticking, showing
its dingy stripes. This garment was the parka.

Berwick and Bruce entered the Pack-Train Saloon and Gambling-hall, and
met there the leaders of Alaska society: men and women of diverse morals
and immoralities. In the great grab-bag system of the goldfields every
man has an equal chance; and on the frontier custom affords but one
field of diversion, which each may enjoy to the full extent of his purse
and inclination. As muscle and endurance alone give eminence on the
trail, so only money and extravagance command attention in the bar-room
and at the gaming-table; and it is there that the illiterate squander
their money over the bars and tables, finding pleasure in the
open-mouthed admiration of the yokel as well as in the stimulation of
the liquor or the excitement of the play.

At the bar of the Pack-Train stood a row of men, in widest diversity of
costume, talking together and to women numbered among the fallen. Behind
the bar were the roulette-wheel, the faro, the Black Jack tables, and
the crap game. A large percentage of these men were actively engaged in
putting supplies over the Passes, and were now squandering at the tables
the money received in payment of that work. The thought struck John that
probably not a man of them, wasting his money there, but had some one
dependent to whom that money would be as a gift from heaven. Alas, for
the recklessness of frontier life, where it so often happens that men
regard a show of contempt for money as tantamount to personal eminence!
Such scenes were not new to him. On the plains in his apprenticeship he
had seen a cowboy shoot his revolver through a bar mirror--and
cheerfully pay the exorbitant recompense demanded by the proprietor: and
in Sydney he had watched a drunken sailor place a five-pound note
between two slices of bread--and eat it!

Such scenes as this in the mushroom Alaska town may be ever-interesting
to the students of human nature; they are also intensely pitiable, as
Berwick found. What sight is sadder than that which shows man degraded,
or woman fallen? Man, the noblest being in all creation; upbuilt,
evolved through the ages; practically perfect in his parts: his body
complex yet true; delicate and confident, enriched with a mind capable
of holding dominion; and conscious of the inspiration of his Creator. To
see him, mind and body, lost to dissipation, drawn from hope, truth, and
love, fallen into the mire, is truly sadder than death.

From the Pack-Train Saloon the two friends visited several shops, and,
notwithstanding the crowds therein, succeeded in adding to their
supplies such necessities as were recommended by Hugh Spencer. Their
purchases completed, they turned before the wind and went back to the
restaurant. The air had taken on a greater chill; the mountain peaks
shone with sunset gold.




CHAPTER V

SOAPY'S LITTLE GAME


"Soapy" Smith was a criminal, with a long record of robbery and murder.
In early life he had been a common "faker" and sold soap, hence his
sobriquet. His process consisted of wrapping small bits of laundry soap
in paper, and including--or appearing to include--with several of the
pieces a bank bill of varying value. Then he would mix all the pieces
together, and picking a handful out of the mass, auction them. Needless
to say every successful purchaser was a confederate!

In the Mining Camps of the Western States he later took more radical
methods, making many enemies and some friends. When he and his gang
wished to exterminate an enemy they would hunt him out in some saloon,
gather about him, and play at fighting among themselves. Revolvers would
be drawn and shots fired--the man "wanted" would be killed. It would be
somewhat hard to find the actual man who fired the fatal shot, and, in
any case, a subservient jury would bring in a verdict of "accidental"
death.

The community that grew at the head of the Lynn Canal in the spring of
1898 was a complete hotbed for crime. There Soapy Smith established
himself, and law and justice ceased to exist. Gold-seekers were enticed
into games, and fleeced or openly robbed in the streets. Every saloon
was owned by the desperado, or paid him tribute, and he drew revenue
from every gambling-table.

Soapy Smith was the boss of these evil conditions. He was styled
"Colonel," and spoken of as a candidate for Congress. A body of United
States Regulars were stationed at Skagway, but did nothing. The Deputy
United States Marshal would make promises, but take no action.

The second evening after the arrival of our party in Skagway the sky was
overcast, and through the night a storm arose. So they stayed within
doors all the next day; but towards night inaction told on them,
likewise lack of fresh air. They became restless after their evening
meal, and George finally said: "Let us go out"--and they went. George
did not say where--nor did John ask. There was only one place to go to,
and that was a saloon and gambling-hall: one was much the same as the
other. Every saloon was a gambling-hall: every gambling-hall a saloon.

On the next night, in the vicinity of Skagway's Sixth Avenue, they
wandered into a saloon which had no sign: the question of what its name
was did not cross their minds! The air was foul, and floor space not too
plentiful. Women stared at them, and "Passed them up." Not so the men.
They moved on to the gaming-tables. John threw a coin on to the Black
Jack table. To his surprise he won. He speculated again: again he won.
Then he remembered the old dodge of letting the novice win a bit at
first, so he decided he would keep on until he found himself losing.
When he had won twenty dollars he put the money into his pocket, and
went on with George to watch a man playing for heavy stakes at roulette.
At this table there was never a word spoken, and the gold pieces passed
from banker to player, from player to banker, without comment.

While the two were looking on they noticed a man come and stand by the
banker, watch the game for a little while, glance shrewdly at them, and
go away. Shortly afterwards another man did the same. John and George
realised this attention, but said nothing. A third man came along, and
bluntly asked them,

"Ever play roulette?"

"No; at least not often," said John.

"Good game."

"Yes."

"Ever shoot craps?"

"No."

"There's a table down at the end of the hall. Care to see it?"

They followed their entertainer to the dimly-lighted rear, where several
men were leaning over a table throwing dice. They watched the game a
bit, and found it uninteresting. They turned to go, when their new
acquaintance made a move to follow--and asked in a hesitating way, "Have
a drink?"

George declined.

The fellow pondered a bit, and then said in an ingratiating way, "Would
you fellows like to see a big mountain goat I bought from the Siwashes
to-day?"

John and George followed the man through a doorway into a cold room
where a few candles were burning on a rough table. On the floor lay an
immense mountain goat.

"My word!" said George, "what a beauty!"

They stood for some minutes surveying the dead monarch of the mountain
crests, their entertainer taking one of the candles and holding it at
the animal's head. Suddenly they heard groans, which appeared to come
through the doorway at the opposite end of the room.

"What's that?"

The man took a candle and walked to the door, bending his head, as if
listening intently. The groans were continued. John and George went over
to him. He held the candle in his left hand, and appeared to haul at the
door with his right. "Oh! Oh!" came from the room in tones of deepest
distress. The fellow handed the candle to John, and then, catching the
door with both hands, gave it a mighty wrench. The heavy plank door
opened and showed a dark cavity, which drank up the slender light of the
candle so effectually that they could distinguish nothing. Cautiously
John entered, followed by George. The door was slammed; they were
trapped.

"We're caught! Soapy has us," exclaimed George.

John turned, shaded the candle with his hand, and explored the room. It
was not large, and it took him but a minute to make a circuit of the
four walls.

"We're caught!" was said again.

"But there is no one here: where did the groans come from?" asked John.

"Don't know, if they weren't ventriloquism," replied George.

That seemed likely. John ran and gave the door a kick: it was solid as a
wall.

"What will they do with us?" he asked.

"Freeze us to death; we'll freeze quick enough in this atmosphere."

The place was cold, clammy, benumbing. The walls were log; the floor of
earth, sparkling with frost crystals; the roof was built of poles. There
was no window. Here and there, where the crevices of the logs had not
been thoroughly filled, and the air came in, there were patches of
frost. They searched for some implement. The room was thoroughly
bare--there was not even a billet of wood, let alone an axe, or saw.
Things were at a pass. They were both to perish in horrible death. The
cold was seizing them. They stamped up and down the room, and shouted.
There was, there could be, no answer.

Frenzy came over them. Trapped! To perish of bitter cold! Horrible!...
Horrible! To famish as caged animals. They saw their little destiny--to
walk, and walk, and walk, and then to lie down and sleep till death, the
reality, came. Their impotency galled them. How weak were their arms and
strength against these walls of logs!

They marched about for an hour or more, encouraging each other as brave
men will.

Then cries were heard faintly from the outside, and new noises, which
grew, and continued to grow. A great blow shook the wall, and then
another. John shouted; George shouted; the blows were repeated; then
they heard voices and shouted again. The door was burst open and in
rushed a number of men.

"Come, fellows, out of this, or you'll be cooked!"

It was the voice of Hugh.

They eagerly followed him through the room where the goat was, and out
through a side door into the open, where a great glare met them. An
outhouse was on fire. Men were rushing about and shouting; but Hugh kept
on through the crowd, and the rescued followed him till they reached the
safety of the street.

"Now we'd better duck for home," said Spencer. "I go with you"; and
through the storm they struggled till they reached the Frau's
restaurant.

She had not yet retired, so they called for supper--tea, bacon, and
beans. After they had settled down Hugh told his story.

"You see, fellows, after I landed I went over to the Chilkoot to have a
look at things there; but after talking to the fellows I reckoned that
the White Pass was best for me, so back I comes. I was in the hall
to-night with you fellows, but you did not see me; and I thought I would
just lay back and see if you would hit the games. Then I kind of got a
notion Soapy's men were watching you; so I thought I would watch the
whole outfit. I see you go back to the crap-game, and then I see you go
into the room with your bunco man--and then I don't see you come out; so
I said to myself, you are there for keeps! Now there was with me one
fellow I could rely on, so I asked him to keep an eye on that door, and
I got out on the street to size up the building. I see towards the rear
the wing you went into, so I walks down there, sizing things up. Round
on the back side I see a door and a window, but the door had the snow
piled up against it--besides, I knew they would not lock you in a room
with a window in it, as you could easily kick that out.

"Then I looks at the walls, and I see by the end of the logs sticking
out that there was a room which had neither window nor door to the
outside, and I said, 'That's the cage!' So I ran back to the saloon and
asked my friend there if anybody had come out, and he said 'No.' I came
to the conclusion that I would make a bluff of going in at the door you
came out of. It was no good; a fellow stopped me and said, 'This room is
private.' This made me sure you were still there, so I commenced
figuring out how I could get you free, and I thought hard. The thing was
to get a crowd together; and as a dog fight is no good in Skagway in the
middle of the night--especially in a snowstorm--I said to myself,
'Fire!' I remembered a building I took for a wood-shed lying near your
skookum house,[5] so I just hunted it up, and after finding there was a
lot of wood in it, with some hay, I set a match to it, and got out,
taking an axe with me. In five minutes it was going fine, and I yelled
'Fire! fire! fire!' Then it was all easy. I struck the logs with the
axe, and yelled there was somebody in there who would get burned; I
busted in the door to the outer room, and then the one into where you
were locked up--the other fellows following. I don't know what the other
fellows around the fire will think you were doing in there; but I guess
they won't ask any questions. Fellows don't ask questions in Soapy's
town; it doesn't do them much good if they do."

[5] "Skookum House": Chinook Indian term for prison--literally
"strong" house.

John and George expressed their gratitude very simply.

"I am going in over the White Pass," he continued, "and I figure, as us
fellows can't keep clear of each other, that we'd better join forces."

"Done!" cried George.

"A good idea!" said John.

So it was agreed.

In the morning details were talked over, and business was arranged.
Additional purchases were made, including two more dogs, thereupon
named Tom and Jerry. Hugh induced his friends to part with much of their
bedding, saying he had a large lynx-skin robe that was warmer than a
dozen pairs of blankets, under which the three might sleep. A
waterproof, a large tanned moose-skin, and a couple of pairs of blankets
would be sufficient to lie upon. Then the commissariat was considered.
Sugar, tea, evaporated potatoes, dried fruit, etc., to be used in the
preparation of every meal, were put into small canvas bags, and those
into a large sack. The general stores were put away in waterproof canvas
sacks, which were marked to indicate contents. The axes of the party
were ground and sharpened. At last all was ready for the advance.




CHAPTER VI

HITTING THE TRAIL


To be early on the trail was an essential to Hugh Spencer. He was up at
four on the morning of the start, harnessed the dogs, carried the outfit
to the sleigh, and lashed it on. Then he aroused his friends, who, when
dressed, found that an early breakfast had been arranged for them of
bacon, eggs, and beans.

"Better put lots next your ribs, for there isn't room to cook a meal on
the trail between here and White Pass City," was the advice they
received.

They left the restaurant, after a kindly good-bye from the old lady.
John and George tied their hand-bags, containing underclothing, towel,
soap, etc., and socks to the load. The main portion of their extra
clothing was left in the general supplies.

Of the five dogs he of the stub tail--Dude the leader--was the only one
that appeared to take an interest in the proceedings, for he was
standing watching his master. The others were mere balls of fur lying in
the snow. Hugh went ahead and harnessed himself in the cord that was
tied to the front of the sleigh, and grasped the "gee-pole," lashed as a
single shaft on the right side of the sleigh.

"Mush," he ordered. Dude gave a tug at the traces, and the other dogs
stood up.

"Mush," was ordered again. The whole five dogs strained at the traces,
in a half-hearted sort of way, not sufficient to move the load. Hugh
then let go his hold of the pole, threw off his harness, and picked up a
whip that was tucked under the lashings of the load. Behind Dude was Two
Bits; then came Four Bits, Tom and Jerry. Beginning with Two Bits, he
gave each a cut with the whip, causing heart-rending howls; but Dude
stood throughout the ordeal, evidently oblivious to the sufferings of
his companions; his tongue protruding. He was a picture of conscious
virtue. Dude knew these signs of the trail, the stern, hard life, the
cut of the whip, the cry of the dog.

Hugh then cracked the whip, re-harnessed himself in the cord, and
grasped the gee-pole.

"Mush," he ordered. The five dogs strained at the traces, taking quick,
furtive glances over their shoulders at the man with the whip. The load
moved; the march towards the great and golden Klondike had started.

Early as they were they saw, as they reached the main street, others on
the trail; and up the long avenue heading north between the great
mountains horse-teams, dog-teams, and men unaided were drawing their
loads. The wind was roaring down the pass, cutting their faces like a
knife. They now appreciated the special virtues of the parka, for with
hood drawn over their head, as they bent before the gale, their faces
largely escaped the cutting blasts; and the light material of which the
garment was made was wonderfully effective in keeping the wind from
their bodies.

Although the recent storm had improved the travelling, it was not long
before the sleigh grated on gravel and stopped, the dogs appearing
instinctively to realize that the noise meant further effort was
useless. Hugh said nothing, but disengaged himself from his harness,
went to the rear of the load, and undid a coil of rope from either side,
to which Berwick and Bruce were harnessed also. He then resumed his
position. "Mush!" The three men and five dogs threw themselves against
the load. There was a shriek from the gravel, and the sleigh glided
again over the soft snow.

The difficulty being over, Hugh told his friends to disengage
themselves and throw the cords back on the load, which they did, after
protesting that they had better remain in harness and help to pull.

"No, you fellows can each take a turn at the gee-pole when I get tired,"
Hugh said.

The dogs would stop for any excuse; it was only necessary for Hugh to
pass the time of day with a south-bound traveller, when the train would
stand, their tongues lolling out, their eyes vacantly staring. 'Tis the
nature of the beast. The native dogs of the north never give the
impression that they work because they feel it their duty. They work
because they know there is a stronger will than theirs behind them, a
will with a whip.

The party moved steadily along for a mile or two, when the road left the
flats and took to the side hill at the right hand of the canyon. A
considerable amount of work had been done, and the trail was in good
shape; but they had not gone far before they were met by a toll-gate.

"Twenty-five cents each, and two dollars and a half for the dog-team,"
was demanded of them, which they paid. The keeper of the toll-gate
seemed happy; he was prospering, and those who employed him were making
money. John and George thought the charge excessive, but Hugh was
exercising his wits, calculating how much the proprietors made out of
what he called their "graft."

Not far beyond the toll-gate they met an old man sitting by a fire under
the lee of a wall of rock. He was off the trail in a sort of little
cove, and on the much-betramped snow around was a sleigh, and by it five
goats in harness. The old man merely looked up as the three friends
approached, and went on poking the fire.

"Well, partner, enjoying the scenery?" asked Hugh, in his good-natured
manner.

"No--I wish I was dead."

"How's that?"

"These ornery goats here, I can't do nothing with them, an' if it wasn't
for poor little Bess, back home, I'd shoot them and meself too."

"What's the trouble?"

"Well, the ornery critters won't pull a pound, and the fellow who sold
them to me down in Seattle said they was just the thing for the
Pass--better'n dogs, for I could feed them on birch browse; but I lit
out from Skagtown[6] four days ago and could get no further than this. I
pretty near had to pull sleigh and goats too to get this far; and I
pitched camp here, where I've stayed ever since. You see it's this
way--the old woman died last fall, and after she died the poor old farm
went plumb to pieces, hard times, and mortgage falling due; so I got a
sickening of the old place without the old woman, and I let the farm go
and put little Bess to school for a year, and lit out for the Klondike.
Bess ain't Bess by rights; she was christianized Matilda Jane, and we
called her Bess for short. Well, the old woman was always building on
bringing up Bess a real lady, and afore she died I promised I'd give
Bess a good schooling and help all I could, and I took to the Klondike,
hearing all a fellow had to do was to get there, and he'd be rich. Here
I am now, and I ain't got no more money. I'm just trying to make up my
mind to shoot the blamed goats and pull my stuff back to Skagtown and
sell it. Then I guess I'll go packing on the Chilkoot along with the
Siwashes."

[6] Skagway

The old man seemed to forget the presence of the strangers, and
muttered, "Poor little Bess! Poor little Bess! I was hoping to make her
a real lady with silks, an' satins, an' diamonds, an' kid gloves, an'
fancy eye-glasses."

Hugh cracked the whip, John tightened on the cord, the dogs threw
themselves into the traces; and the trio was on its way up the Pass. No
one spoke for some time; each was thinking of the old man's tale, and of
such as that old man there were hundreds in the Passes.

The trail, as they struggled along, proved to be more and more built
against the side hill, and frequently the sleigh showed a disposition
to slide into the canyon, so that all were compelled to give attention
to it. But the three men taking turn at the gee-pole, they had soon
crossed Kill-a-man Creek, and were at the foot of Porcupine Hill. The
time had passed quickly, and the air, though cold, was highly
stimulating. George and John voted the parka a wonderful garment.

Arriving at the base of the hill, Hugh quickly undid the fastenings,
piled half the load on the side of the trail, and relashed the balance
to the sleigh; then he and John set about the task of taking the first
load to the top of the hill, while George mounted guard at the base.
Hugh took the gee-pole, John harnessed himself in the cord that was
attached to the left-hand rear of the sleigh; so they set out.

The hill made a rise of several hundred feet in the first quarter of a
mile, and in some places seemed almost standing on end; but straining,
pulling, tugging, men and dogs both, they eventually reached the top.
They soon had the sleigh unloaded, and Hugh was off down again for the
remainder of the load. In three-quarters of an hour they were all
together again. Then began the descent, which was almost as acute as the
rise had been. They adjusted the necessary brakes by tying a piece of
rope around each runner.

Before leaving the summit of Porcupine Hill they had a good look at the
view. Across the valley in front, set in a basin of the mountains, was a
collection of buildings and tents, constituting White Pass City. Two
long lines of men and teams marked the White Pass, one on the left side
of the canyon, the other on the canyon bottom. The hillside trail was
used by horses, mules, and oxen, while in the wedge-like canyon bottom
men and dogs toiled. The reason for the hillside trail was that its
ascent was more gradual, the lower trail having many abrupt rises up
which horses and oxen could not clamber.

The scene of toil and labour, backed by the sublimity of the
surroundings, impressed the beholders; but the party came to life again
with Hugh's order, "Mush!"

The dogs struggled with the load over the brink of the decline down
which the sleigh quickly passed, and the party was not long in reaching
White Pass City. This was the first depot out from Skagway, and was
distant there-from twelve miles. From White Pass City to Lake Bennett
the distance was twenty-four miles, so they were now one-third of the
way. But the twelve miles they had passed was the easiest part of the
journey.

Saloons and restaurants in wide array, and numerous stables in the
shape of tents tied down and guyed against the ever-recurring blasts,
comprised White Pass City. And how the wind did blow from the
funnel-shaped canyon across the basin in which the town was built!

Notwithstanding the cold, beasts of burden were standing in all
directions, tied to posts and rails, while the dogs seemed without
number. It being now late in the day, there were more teams returning
from the summit and Bennett than were setting out. Amongst those
returning they met a man with a dozen pack-mules. Long icicles hung from
his moustache, powdery snow was driven into the folds of his parka, his
cheeks were alternate patches of blue and crimson. His manner was
blustering, because he was glad at having returned, and proud that he
had done so without losing any horses.

"Hello," said Hugh, "what's it like on the summit?"

"What's it like! Look here, stranger, if I owned hell and that summit,
I'd sell the summit and live in hell, so help me! What's the matter with
the summit? Why, if that cursed wind ain't blowing from the north cold
enough to freeze hell, then it's blowing from the south and snowing as
if all the feather beds in the New Jerusalem were being split open and
shaken loose. I'll be hanged if the Mounted Police ain't got a stable
and store-house scooped out under the snow, and the roof standing up
like as if it was a rock. About sixty feet of snow has fallen up there
this winter; and how them poor devils of policemen hold things down in
tents is more than I know. A fellow can tackle it for a day or two, but
these fellows have been up there since early in February!"

"It's a way they have in the Army," suggested George, always an ardent
Briton.

"Those fellows are different from any Army fellows I ever seed," was the
stranger's reply.

The pack-train was called to a halt. The communicative stranger and his
assistants were taking the saddles off the mules; but for once the dogs
were impatient and restless: instinct told them they were near the end
of their day's work and the prospect of food. So Hugh let them have
their way, and they drew up in front of a restaurant which bore the
legend, "Meals, seventy-five cents."

"Better go in and eat, fellows, and I'll look after the dogs," said
Hugh.

His friends demurred, but he insisted; so they entered the restaurant.

There was the same motley crowd feeding in the same savage manner as at
Skagway. Everybody smoked on the trail--in all places and under any
condition--save where the pipe froze and refused its duty.

The hour was between two and three. Berwick and his comrade thought they
had never been so hungry. How they relished the hot soup, and the meat,
potatoes, and beans! And when they drank ...! George finished his dinner
first, and scrambled off to relieve Hugh, whom he found cutting up
pieces of raw meat for the dogs.

"Raw meat ain't any too good for dogs, but after they get over the
summit they will get down to boiled rice and tallow--and that ain't far
off."

Hugh was certainly the favourite of the dogs just then, but soon after
George's arrival he put the piece of meat he had been dividing into a
sack and threw it on the sleigh, and hurried to the restaurant, saying
that he would boil the rest of the meat for the dogs after he himself
had something to eat. "Look out for Soapy's gang" was his final warning
to George.

After Hugh had his dinner (dinner is the mid-day, supper the evening,
meal on the trail) he remarked that he would take a mooch round. When he
returned he greeted his friends with:

"Say, I found a fellow I know here running one of these stables, and he
has a tent with a lot of hay in it, and says we can sleep in that,
which will save us making camp. We can put the dogs inside and run less
chances of having them stolen; also the grub."

So Dude was aroused from his sleep; four other doggy noses were
withdrawn from under four bushy tails, and to the accompaniment of howls
the load was removed to the hay-tent, the dogs unharnessed, the load
unpacked. Hugh undid the bedding and spread it on a pile of straw.

"This will be the last bed we'll strike for some time after we leave
here," was his remark.

He grabbed the sack with the meat, and went off to see if he could find
space on a stove to boil it. He soon returned with the meat, as well as
a bucket in which were canine dainties--kitchen scraps.

"Chuck it into you," was Hugh's remark to the dogs as he threw them the
food; "you'll have to work to-morrow."

As there was nothing to do now till that morrow, the three again
strolled out to look at the trail, up which the full flow of traffic was
now toiling. Profanity filled the air. The travellers cursed the trail;
they cursed their horses, cursed their dogs, the wind, the country
generally.

They wandered into a saloon, which, as ever, was reeking with tobacco,
and vibrating to the notes of "Home, sweet Home," reeled off on a
gramophone. Hugh looked cautiously at the company. "Soapy's men!" he
whispered; so he and his companions went. John noticed that a good deal
of money was being won at the tables; but Hugh told him that the men who
were winning were Soapy's staff.

"They seem to run a wonderful system," said John.

"Yes; Soapy pretty nearly owns the whole shop from the Lynn Canal to the
summit."

"But why does he stop at the summit?"

"Police."

"But they have police on this side."

"Not the same."

"How do you account for that?"

"Don't know: discipline! The Canadian police are not grafting. Fellows
I've met from the inside tell me that Cap Constantine gave records for
all the rich claims in Bonanza, and neither he nor any of the rest of
the Mounted Police grafted any. That's what I call honest; but now,
since the records have been taken away from the police, there's nothing
but grafting going on. Fellows have to give up half interest in claims
to the officials before they can get record; and even the Government is
grafting officially with this ten per cent. royalty. If some of those
Members of Parliament back in Canada were here, with this proposition,
getting over these Passes, they'd think they had a right to all they'd
found in this country. And now they are taking part of it away--it's a
shame, I call it."

They had walked up the lower trail leading to the summit. Whatever men
and horses were to be seen were making down the Pass, for the trail that
clung to the side of the mountain was so narrow that two horses, going
in opposite directions, could not pass each other; so in the morning the
horses passed up the trail, and in the afternoon down. That was the
unwritten law. They returned to the sleeping quarters.

Every dog, except Dude, had his nose under his tail, and was apparently
oblivious to all outside concerns. Dude's tail was not long enough to
cover his nose, and Hugh noticed his eyes quiver and open slightly. On
the floor was the empty meat sack. The five dogs had demolished the
large piece of dead horse.

"That's Dude," said Hugh.

"Which?" asked John.

"Why, stealing that meat. Before we get to Dawson you'll know what a
high-class article in the stealing line he is. However, there'll be lots
more dead horses: they kill about a dozen a day between here and
Bennett."

"How do they manage that?"

"Wait till to-morrow, and you'll see."




CHAPTER VII

HUGH'S PHILOSOPHY


The stars were still shining when the friends tore themselves, stiff and
sore, from under their lynx-skin robe on the morrow to dress in the
chill atmosphere of the tent; but the sounds of movement were
everywhere. Commands, embellished with profanity, were being shouted.
When the three adventurers, after a hurried breakfast, eagerly went out
a sickly light was spreading over the mountains, which seemed spectral
and immense.

"We'll take the flour, sugar, and hardware in the first two loads,"
remarked Hugh, as he began selecting these supplies; "and it won't do
any harm to hang our bacon sack from a rafter while we are away, as a
stray malamoot might get in here. These blamed dogs will chew a tin can
open to get at the meat inside."

The plan of campaign suggested by Hugh and endorsed by the others was to
divide the supplies in three loads; to take two, comprising the reserve
stores, to the summit and cache them; then, on the following day, to
carry the remainder of the stuff right through to Log Cabin, or to
Bennett if they could manage it, and establish a camp there. This
depended on the condition of the trail.

Early as they were, there were scores of outfits setting out, and many
were ahead of them.

They had not gone far when they met two men and a dog-team; one of the
men was belabouring the dogs with a whip, making them howl dreadfully.
Dude and the rest of the team halted, and, with their masters, watched
the proceedings. The dogs belaboured were soon tangled among the traces
in fine confusion. Each animal, as he saw a stroke coming his way,
jumped sideways with a howl and buried his nose and feet in the snow.
The cruelty aroused the anger of John and George, who made a move
towards the brute with the whip. Hugh caught him by the arm and pulled
him back.

"Better not make yourself a Humane Society in this country; you'll only
get into trouble--besides, he ain't hurting the dogs: wait!"

When the man rested from the belabouring, Hugh asked to be allowed to
"try the dogs."

The fellow glared angrily at him; but then, with a surly nod, gave the
permission. Hugh started with the leaders, and worked down the whole
line, placing the dogs in order once again, hauling them about, but
saying nothing. Then he took the gee-pole, and ordered "mush." The
leader looked back over his shoulder, as did the dog next him. "Mush!"
again cried Hugh. The dogs drew steadily at their collars, glancing
furtively at their new master. Hugh once more encouraged them, and when
the load began to move passed on his charge to the owner, who had the
grace to look sheepish.

"To handle dogs," said Hugh, when he had rejoined his party and had
resumed the trail, "you've got to get them frightened of you; and moving
round them, silent-like, puts fear in their souls. You see, that fellow
wasn't really hurting them; they could hardly feel that light whip
through their fur, and their feet and noses, where they are tender, they
stuck in the snow. As for howling--it comes natural to malamoots.
No--you've got to treat them just as you do women."

The trail often became precipitous, but as the combined strength of the
three men and the dogs was sufficient to lift the load bodily, their
difficulties were well overcome.

They had not been out of the White Pass City an hour when George shouted
"Look!" and pointed to the mountain-side to the left. The trail away
above them was lined with horses, moving slowly forward; but down the
mountain-side eight burroes were plunging--head tied to tail as is the
custom. Every dog team on the lower trail had stopped to watch the
sight, for there was a great rattling of rock and a general shout
calling attention to the catastrophe. The unfortunate creatures soon
reached the base of the slide and were lost in the soft snow. They
struggled, and they disappeared. One more sacrifice to that dreadful
trail, which, during the Klondike rush, had claimed the lives of
thirty-five hundred animals! In that canyon, between White Pass City and
the summit, during the spring of 1898, it was possible to walk long
distances on the bodies of dead horses, and to this day the line of
march is marked by protruding bones, indicating the graves of the
patient and faithful creatures, sacrificed to man's insatiable greed for
gold.

"Now you see where the dog-food comes from," remarked Hugh.

The accident had occurred a little in front of them, and shortly
afterwards two men were seen floundering through the soft snow down the
side hill to the beaten trail, along which the dog-teams were pressing.

"You had hard luck," Hugh called to them.

"Yes, I couldn't keep that blame bell burro from experimenting how near
he could go to the side without falling off, till at last he got his
needings," replied one of the drivers.

"Whose outfit were they?"

"Rivers; and the Canadian Government owns the supplies--police stuff.
They can stand it."

The two drivers went on down the trail to White Pass City.

The Canadian Government was evidently not popular. The iniquities of the
royalty on gold, and the grafting current in the Gold Commissioner's
office in Dawson were resented.

As the party progressed up the Pass, they found its walls coming closer
together, making the canyon so narrow that the horse trail on the
mountain-side appeared directly overhead. Numbers of dead cattle
appeared by the side of the path, telling of the calamities of the
trail. Veterans of the trail will tell weird tales of horses, goaded by
whip and burden, deliberately throwing themselves into the canyon
below--seeking surcease from suffering in death. As the canyon became
narrower, so did the trail become more congested. It also grew steeper
as they neared the summit, and men and dogs had frequently to pause for
rest. It appeared to John a curious struggling mass that surrounded him,
strange oaths in all accents came to his ears. The multitude were
striving in a race in which brute force alone could conquer.

They came to a party in trouble, and overheard an argument.

"I tell you the territory clear through to Lake Bennett belongs to the
United States, and I'm convoy for the United States Customs. I ain't
going to let you get over the summit until you pay my wages for four
days more, that is, two days from the summit to Lake Bennett loaded, and
two days back again from Bennett to Skagway, travelling light, and
that's going some too. It amounts to thirty-two dollars, at eight
dollars per day--so all you've got to do is pay up."

"No, you don't own the land beyond the summit. Don't you see the English
flag up there--that red thing flying from the tent pole? All you've got
to do is show me over the summit, and we're quits. I've paid you forty
dollars already: three days doing nothing at White Pass City during the
storm; and you lost the money playing Black Jack. I ain't got any more
money to pay you, anyway. I can't pay you when I ain't got the money."

"Well, dig for it; sell part of your outfit. You can't bluff me. I'm an
officer of the United States Customs, and I'm on to my job."

"More grafting," muttered Hugh.

So it was that these convoys, armed with authority more or less real,
harassed and blackmailed the victims.

They were now near the summit, in the midst of the last struggle which
would put them over the most difficult portion of the trail, and the
excitement was general. There was a deal of shouting, and a great
renewal of effort. The horse trail and the lower trail merged into one.

At last they were through. The narrow defile curved to the right; an
open basin appeared, with strewn tents and an endless promise of
supplies; and--most conspicuous of all!--side by side the flags of
Britain and the United States were flying.

A dozen members of the Canadian Mounted Police, wearing the uniform of
England's Queen, were examining freight, with their backs to the wind,
or passing in and out of a tent, half buried in snow, which served as an
office. This was the second great depot out from Skagway, and piled
about everywhere were loads of freight. Outfits stood about in disorder,
awaiting the returning tide of men, while constantly teams were arriving
from, or setting out to, Bennett.

The outfit of Hugh and his companions was finally passed by eleven
o'clock. Goods of Canadian manufacture were allowed to pass free, and
the charges against the few American goods were of no great amount. Hugh
selected a projecting rock on which to make his cache, and the policeman
who examined his baggage, and whose good offices the party had won,
promised to keep an eye on their goods.

"Soapy doesn't operate on this side," said the man in uniform
significantly.

"We could coast back in half an hour if the trail was clear," Hugh
remarked, as they started on the return.

As it was, they sat on the sleigh most of the way to White Pass City,
which they reached at noon--as a man was pounding a great triangle of
steel with an iron rod, announcing dinner.

The three were very well pleased with their morning's work.

There were not quite so many teams on the trail in the afternoon, and
they reached the summit by half-past three. The sun had been shining all
day, so that the atmosphere seemed mellower; and the wind did not blow
so strongly. After passing the goods they had time to climb the ridge on
which the police tents were erected. From thence they gazed down the
valley, which they knew was the uppermost watershed of the mighty Yukon,
whose course makes a great curve of twenty-four hundred miles ere it
flows into the Behring Sea. Far in the distance they could see a stunted
growth of timber, but their immediate surroundings were mountains,
hardly less overpowering than in White Pass City.

The view impressed them--the scene was weird in its desolation; they
felt that stirring incidents were to take place in that great valley
before them.

"Looks as if we would have a touch of spring to-morrow, and I guess we
had better have our snow-glasses ready before we set out," said Hugh.




CHAPTER VIII

OVER THE SUMMIT


Hugh's prediction came true, for, on the morning following, a gentle
breeze was blowing from the south, soft with the touch of spring. The
first light that came over the mountains was a softening blue.

"Roll out and get the kinks out of you, fellows, we've got to be first
on the trail to-day."

They had breakfast, the dogs were harnessed, and the party on the march
by half-past four. Though the light was uncertain it was not hard to
keep the trail. By six they were at the summit, greeting the police
sentinel who had been on guard there through the night, and marvelling
at the wealth of colours that lit the eastern sky.

"Mush!"

The dogs were off. The sleigh slid down upon the frozen plain of Summit
Lake. The lightness with which it glided along seemed to assure the
party that their troubles were over. As the dogs trotted along it
required a pace faster than a walk to keep up with them; so Hugh induced
his two companions to sit on the load, saying that he would take a ride
after a while. At nine they reached Log Cabin--passed without a halt, it
being merely a police depot used for cutting firewood, though it had
been the Customs post before the Canadian Government had asserted
proprietary rights to the summit. Almost invariably, when greetings were
exchanged with those met on the trail, the humour played about Soapy.

"Say, you're hustling. I guess you ain't chechachoes. How's Soapy? going
to run for President next trip?"

"I guess so, if he ain't hung in the meantime. Looks like that he was
the whole thing in the Passes."

As the party at one o'clock drew into Bennett, they saw one party eating
dinner in the open, with sleigh loaded and dogs harnessed beside them. A
pile of spruce boughs denoted where these strangers had slept, and where
their tent, now drawn up on their sleigh, had been erected.

"Moving camp?" asked Hugh.

"Yes."

"I don't suppose you're going to take your location away with you?"

"I guess not."

"Then it will just suit us, and we can use your fire. This is what I
call lucky," said Hugh, as he began unlashing the load and throwing the
bundles of supplies on the spruce bed.

George was busying himself undoing the supplies while John replenished
the fire. George cooked bacon; Hugh mixed flour, baking-powder, and
water for slap-jacks--the large pancakes of the frontier. As they worked
Hugh re-opened conversation with the strangers.

"Where's your new location?"

"Down the lake, five miles. Got wind of a good bunch of timber there,
and hauled a load down this morning. One of our fellows stayed down
making camp while us two came back for the rest of the stuff."

"How long have you been coming from Skagway?"

"Three weeks--a week here, and two weeks getting over the Pass.
Contracted with a fellow to put through our stuff at thirty cents a
pound, but finally had to buy dogs and haul it ourselves. And then the
storms have been something fearful up to the last few days: sort of
Dakota blizzard every day almost, after which trails was mighty bad
hauling. This sort of weather comes hard on a fellow who was reared in
California."

"I guess it would come hard on a fellow reared at the North Pole! You
fellows will have your boat built in lots of time."

"Yes, if we don't take to quarrelling like the rest of the blame fools
around here."

"What are those fellows doing here?" Hugh nodded to the great array of
tents spread over the sand hills that lie between Lake Bennett and Lake
Lindeman.

"Most of them don't know what they are doing; but I guess they put in
their time quarrelling. Old Moss-backs from the East, who have lived
neighbours all their lives, and been best of friends, have come up here
partners, and before they got through the Passes were calling each other
the names they heard used by the old-timers to their dogs! It takes the
police all their time settling disputes. The habit seems to have took
all round, now that they are through their troubles and have only
straight hard work, whip-sawing lumber, ahead of them. Why, say! I saw
two fellows the other day dividing their outfit. They took a two-faced
axe and drove it into a log, and with the face sticking up and a hammer
they cut a whip-saw in two, making it no good for either, and swearing
at each other all the time till you could smell sulphur. They cut stoves
in two, and boats, after working hard to build them. It seems a new kind
of bughouse that has got hold of them."

The strangers were now washing up their dishes and packing them away.
"Here, take this, hand me a plate," and one of them poured some stewed
prunes out of a pot, and from another emptied into a second plate beans
and bacon.

"But you fellows could take these along!" protested Hugh.

"No, we couldn't; they'd get spilled; besides, we have some beef-steak
for supper. Some fellows down near the lake killed an ox this morning,
and you can get steak for six bits per pound--if it ain't all gone.
Good-bye!"

The strangers went off down the hill to the lake.

Pipes were lit, and the three lay in the sun smoking. The day was
glorious and the party had removed their snow-glasses, so that they were
able to view their surroundings to the full. Mountains gleamed and
glistened everywhere in the distance, but did not appear so overpowering
or inspiring as in the Pass, though more beautiful. How pure the air
seemed, and spotless the snow!

Though the sun was warm and the party comfortable, there were duties to
be performed; so, not without groans, Hugh and his friends started to
erect camp. After the tent was up, Hugh put pots of beans, prunes, and
rice on to boil--the rice being for the dogs, as there was small
prospect of getting dead horse in Bennett.

After the bed had been made and the supplies stored in the tent, and
more wood cut, there was nothing to be done; so Hugh went off among the
tents on a "mooch round"--with an eye for beef-steak! George, acting as
cook, stayed at home.

John also went sight-seeing. He took a different trail from his friend,
crossed to the west side of the stream that led from Lake Lindeman to
Lake Bennett, and walked in the direction of a smoke stack, the local
saw-mill, half a mile distant.

As he strolled through the array of tents, he heard angry voices
proceeding from one of them.

"I tell you he's no good," one was shouting. "I had to pull most all the
way up the Chilkoot--him saying he had rheumatism, backache, toothache,
heartburn--everything but the mumps, for them I could see. An' then,
when we did get over the summit, it's me who had to do all the pulling."

"It's a lie--you're a low dog; and didn't I have to take whisky along
before you'd travel at all? I tell you, Mr. Policeman, he's no good,
he's a skunk, and I wouldn't take a skunk into Dawson with me, not if I
never got there, nor never saw the million dollar claim I guess I'm
going to get--if ever I get there."

John, passing beside the tent, could see the two disputants each seated
on a log of wood, with a red-coated policeman standing in front of them.

"Well," said the policeman, "if you fellows can't get on together, the
only thing to do is split up the outfit and each take what belongs to
him."

"I own the whole outfit," said the man with the many diseases.

"No, you don't; I own the tent, the stove, the sleigh, and a whole lot
of the grub," shouted the other.

John passed on. Another petty problem for the Mounted Police! They are
great men, great workers, those yellow-legs!

There were some industrious 'prentices at Lake Bennett, for down along
the shore were numerous groups of men, building boats.

"Like beef-steak?" asked Hugh, as John returned.

"Yes--rather."

A big frying-pan, with sizzling meat, was busy on the little tin camp
stove.

"Keep an eye on the meat, John, while I get some water."

Hugh took a pail and went off to the river.

George Bruce was away with an axe getting wood, so John was left in
charge. Shortly afterwards George came along, hauling a log of firewood
by an axe driven into it. John ran to assist him, and when the two had
returned with the wood Hugh was arriving with the water. John again
turned his attention to the frying-pan: the largest piece of steak was
gone!

"What has happened to the steak?" John asked.

Hugh looked. A grim smile came over his face.

"Dude!"

"Dude could not steal steak out of a frying-pan?"

"Not Dude? You bet your life that's where the steak has gone to. And
there is no use licking him; the only way to cure Dude of stealing is to
cut his tail off behind his ears. I told you Dude would rather steal
than eat: and this shows how careful you must be."

Dude was lying a picture of innocence on the snow. How he could maintain
an appearance of unconcern with a broiling hot beef-steak inside him was
a marvel! John looked at him amazed: the smallest slit of a black eye
was watching him.

"I was only away about three minutes."

"Half a minute is enough for Dude. He likes beef-steak!"

Hugh refilled the pan and then--civilization knows no artifice to better
the enjoyment of such a meal!

They were partakers, too, of another repast--their souls were fed by the
glories of nature: the sun was setting; its splendour spread from high
in the heavens to the rugged range that yesterday had resisted them. On
that vast canvas were painted salmon-coloured clouds with long ribbons
of yellow, bearing the lustre of burnished gold.

It was the extreme of grandeur, awe-inspiring and ennobling. The evening
was very still.




CHAPTER IX

STORM AND STRESS


It was five o'clock on the morrow before the party was up, and six
o'clock before, breakfast cooked and eaten, John and Hugh were on the
road to the summit. They were to travel the twenty miles there, and
return with one thousand pounds of supplies.

The glow of the sun was already upon the mountains when they set out.

"Say! it's going to be a hot day, and it's going to thaw some. It'll
make hauling easy, but our feet will be pretty wet; good thing we've got
some dry socks and rubbers in our outfit at the summit. Another thing
is, we're going to meet a whole lot of fellows on the trail the way
we're going to-day; and, what's worse, we'll get more of them coming
back."

Sure enough, after they left Log Cabin, they could see the toilers
coming, winding in a snake-like procession among the hills.

Hugh had prophesied correctly. By eleven o'clock they were in their
shirt-sleeves. The dazzling whiteness of the snow, reflected from all
sides, made the use of smoke-glasses necessary; but the perspiration,
dimming the glass, troubled their sight. The end of John's nose became
painful; his cheeks burned. It reminded him of the after-effects of his
first sunny spring day on the water in England.

They met and passed scores of teams, and still more were pouring over
the summit when they arrived there at one o'clock. It was half-past two
before they had their feet encased in German socks and rubber shoes, and
their load ready again for the trail.

"We can't make home before dark, but we should be able to make Log Cabin
by seven, after which the trail will be clear, and we should arrive by
ten. This trail will be mighty good going after it starts to freeze,
which it will do, soon as the sun goes down."

At four o'clock they were three miles on the trail. There was already
frost in the air.

Ere another half-hour had passed Hugh felt his cheek smitten by a gust
of wind, laden with particles of ice.

"I thought so!" he exclaimed; "these last few days have shown too large
a pay streak of spring to last. We're in for trouble. It will be down on
us in half an hour. All we can do is to keep on as we are going,
steadily. I guess we shall make Log Cabin, but not with this load. The
soft snow makes a thousand pounds too much for the dogs. Look!" He
pointed to a miniature cyclone coming along the trail, drinking up the
ice particles as it whirled. It struck them sharply as a gust of wind.

The first contact of the storm was cold and cutting; then the wind
veered, and down came the snow. The sleigh was soon too heavy.

"The only thing is to cache the sleigh and turn the dogs loose; the
chances are we won't be able to keep the trail in this storm; and if we
do come out alive, we won't be able to find the sleigh if we abandon it
far from the trail."

"Do you think the storm will be very bad?"

"It's bad now, ain't it? How long will it be before there is eighteen
inches of snow on this trail? For a time we can keep it by feeling it
hard under us; but we are liable to get off it--and once lost, there is
no finding it again. Mind, the wind is blowing from the right, half to
the rear. Here's a tree; I've noticed this lone spruce before, and we
can find it again. Let us stand the sleigh up against it, and turn the
dogs loose."

So to the tree dogs and men struggled; the dogs were unhitched, harness
was piled on top of the load. Then, with a great effort, the men managed
to up-end the load against the tree.

Hugh called Dude to him, and pulled an old envelope out of his pocket,
on which he scratched: "Cached sleigh on north side of trail by spruce
tree, five miles from the summit.--Hugh Spencer." This he tied to a
handkerchief, and that to Dude's collar.

"It's no harm letting George know where the grub is, for if we don't
find camp again, Dude will."

The dogs went, Dude leading, and were soon lost to sight.

Down the trail the two men strode. The snow was six inches deep already,
the wind piling it upon the trail. The weather did not feel cold; in
fact, both were comfortably warm. For an hour they plodded along.
Occasionally one would plunge into the soft snow and scramble back on to
the beaten trail. Conversation was not much indulged in.

The light began to fail, yet they stumbled along. There was nothing they
could recognize in the boulders and cliffs that loomed around them in a
deathly monotony.

For half an hour darkness was upon them, when Hugh remarked that Log
Cabin could not be far away. Immediately following his remark they
plunged into soft snow. The trail seemed to have come to an end; but
this could not be so. They retraced their steps and regained firm
footing. They felt cautiously around with their feet, but could find the
underlying snow hard only in the direction whence they came.

"I guess we're off the trail, and have walked along a bank where the
wind has packed the old snow good and hard. Looks to me as if we was
lost."

"Don't give up," said John.

"Give up! I ain't giving up; but we're lost. I won't give up as long as
I can wiggle."

"What had we better do?"

"Keep moving! If you don't, you freeze!" Spencer's voice was low and
serious as he said, "Keep the wind on your right side; and if you've got
any last will and testament to make, scratch it on a piece of paper and
leave it in your pocket before your hands get numb, or your mind weak.
We're up against it hard! We will stay together, of course; but should
we get separated, don't move too fast, or you will tire yourself out and
go to sleep in the snow. Don't let sleep take hold of you, or you're
dead! Just keep moving fast enough to keep warm, or, at least, from
freezing; go down hill rather than up; and don't fall over a cliff. Have
you ever been up against a life-and-death proposition? If not, you are
pretty near one now."

They proceeded on their uncertain journey, but were soon floundering in
soft snow. They kept on. It was easy enough to say "keep going
down-hill," but, so far as John was concerned, he seemed to be walking
up-hill all the time. They frequently exchanged shouts, and so remained
together.

For hours they plodded on, the snowfall growing less, but the cold
greater.

John began to act, to call, mechanically. His mind in that desolate
trampling was transported to happier places. He thought of his Alice
Peel. She was probably, he mused, thinking of him also. Did her mind
ever picture such experiences as he was now realizing? She would
possibly read in the newspapers of the great rush of gold-seekers over
those terrible mountains and through the stormy passes. If he should die
in that storm, and months afterwards she heard of his demise?... The
thought drifted along to several loose ends. He must not sleep, or he
would die; and it was his duty to live; but--oh! to sleep!... His
father, and the old school, the church services! How much he would like
to hear the old organ and the choir!... It had been the family wish that
he should take Holy Orders, and he had refused the vocation, feeling it
not his. Had he done right? He believed yes.... He might be about to
meet his Creator. What might his record be?...

His mind went back to an occasion in Australia, when he had been lost in
the Bush, and had wandered for days without water, till some blacks
found him. He remembered, before going into unconsciousness with his
back against a rock, that a vulture was watching him. He had taken a
piece of stone, and, pretending it was a pistol, had pointed it at the
bird....

John Berwick's mind was picturing sand and heat, while above him roared
the Arctic storm.

How cold it was getting, and the wind was beginning to blow! The parka
did not sufficiently protect his face.

Hugh shouted out that they were crossing a lake, and there might be a
camp along its edge. They came in due course to the other side of the
lake, with the cliff so steep they could not climb it. They followed the
shore to the right, facing the storm. They crossed another lake, and
still another. The air had grown intensely cold; the wind was higher,
and ever there came that terrible inclination to lie down and sleep.

After they had passed over the last little lake Hugh shouted to John
that they were surely now far from the proper trail, as he could
recollect no such water near Bennett. Lake Lindeman was four miles long.

The wind was rising, and the increasing cold told that it came from the
north. Hugh began now really to doubt whether they would live through
the storm.

Soon afterwards fine ice crystals impinged against their faces. Great
swirls of wind fell upon them. This new severe onslaught of nature
aroused John, who called to his comrade. He had suddenly realized how
very, very close they were to death.

"The snow is going--it's easier walking," he said suddenly.

They closed together, and struggled along abreast. They were too nearly
dead to notice that the going was good. Suddenly John fell into the soft
snow, and Hugh, exerting his worn powers, dragged him back.

"The trail, the trail," gasped John, with his face close to Hugh's.

"Trail! we ain't been on any trail for hours."

"Feel with your feet!"

Hugh stopped to feel with his feet two runner tracks of horse sled. Hope
came to them, made a great call to their resources. Meanwhile their
tired hearts and very weary bodies endured the bombardment of the
snow-laden wind, which seemed to penetrate them, taking the heat of life
from their vitals!

They came to another lake. How the wind cut! The snow, driven over the
surface of the ice, gave a hard, grinding noise. Would ever they come
to the end of that pitiless journey!

Bang! They stumbled against a sleigh standing in the middle of the road.
Hugh kicked at it; the singletree rattled; he recognized the sound. He
gave a desperate shout; another and another.

Then, at last, the promise of relief and of life came to them. They
smelt smoke. Just for a second!--that creosotic odour was to them as
sweetest perfume. It meant life, warmth, comfort, human companionship.

The figure of a man with a lantern loomed up before them, and a deep
voice asked,

"What's the matter?"

"We're lost," said John.

"No, you're not; you're right here on Crater Lake, just over the summit
of the Chilkoot."

"Thank God!" said Hugh.

"We're the police; come inside." They staggered into a tent warmed by a
tin stove, on which was a pot of coffee. The man quickly produced cups,
and gave them to drink.

John Berwick just fell on a pile of wood, stacked near the stove, and
fell asleep. Now that the great struggle against the elements, which
force of personality rather than strength of limbs had carried him
through, was over, he collapsed.

When the policeman returned with bread and meat for them, he found Hugh
removing his friend's shoes, and brushing the snow from his legs.

"Let him sleep," said Hugh.

       *       *       *       *       *

In far-away London at that very hour--in England high noon--Alice Peel
was walking down Regent Street. Her spirits were restless. The bustling
traffic, the interest of the shops, the passing of the people, could not
keep her thought from a far wanderer. She was weary of this ordered
civilization; and remembering John in his adventures heard the call of
the wilds.

There was now a possibility for this yearning to be satisfied. Her
father, Surgeon-Major Peel, had lost his money through a sudden
misfortune, and had been prompted by the news from the Klondike also to
make a bid for fortune there, not as a gold-seeker, but in his own
profession. He was convinced that a hospital in that desperate region
would be in all ways a good venture.

Alice had determined to accompany him. To her that spring morning, even
with all the fever of restlessness in her blood, was full of hope. The
soft air and the sunshine were conditions--how different from those
endured by Berwick and his comrade in their life-and-death march!




CHAPTER X

AN EMPIRE'S OUTPOST


After two hours of solid sleep, the blanket was lifted from the
exhausted gold-seekers, and they were shaken back into life.

"Get up and eat, you need it."

Still aching in every bone the two poor fellows staggered to their feet.

A dim light was penetrating the canvas, as they looked about them.
Underneath was ice--the frozen surface of Crater Lake--on which were
spread piles of blankets, the beds of the police.

Notwithstanding the fire, the air of the tent was chill and frosty, and
the canvas flapped in the wind. The walls of the tent were dark, showing
the level of the snow around them. The presence of this snow, no doubt,
explained how the tent had withstood the fury of the gale.

The policeman led the way to the cook tent, where they were given bacon
and slap-jacks.

"Can't make bread here, and don't get it very often from Dyea, and
we're just out now," apologized the policeman who acted as cook.

While they were eating ravenously, the officer in command of the post
called to see them and inquired if they were any the worse for their
experiences.

"Hardly salubrious, the climate, eh?" he said, after they had answered
his particular questions. "On several occasions we have had the tents
blown down, and frequently the men had to sit up all night holding the
poles to prevent a catastrophe. I must say our fellows have shown great
grit under most trying circumstances. You see we are on a civil campaign
here, and there is not the excitement of fighting to keep the men up."

With that the officer left the tent. A policeman glanced after him and
muttered,

"Civil campaign! Hear the old man talk! We're holding down the blooming
Passes for the Queen! That's what we're doing. We could live in comfort
at Lindeman, with all the wood we want for cabins and to burn."

"Where do you get your wood?"

"Down the trail--when we get any at all. They send a horse up from
Lindeman. The last few days the trail has been pretty good, and some
teams have been hauling from there to here: but we got only one
load--which won't last us through the storm, if it holds much longer."

"Do you collect much duty here?"

"Well--rather! The old man just dumps the money he takes in a leather
sack, and the other day he had thirty-five thousand dollars in it; but
he hasn't got that much now. He sent one of the fellows down to Skagway
with it. It was rather risky, for all the hard cases travelling the
Passes got to know the sack; and there was a good deal of risk of the
fellow getting shot; but he went through the whole gang and got on the
boat at Dyea, and crossed to Skagway."

"The man had pluck!"

"Yes; but human nature in many ways is alike in both red-skin and white
men, and the police have learned to do these sort of things. Down on the
plains in the old days, when the savages were mean, it was often the
case that one or two policemen would ride into a reservation, arrest a
red-skin, and take him away with hundreds of armed Indians yelling
around them. The Indians thought the police were crazy, and it is
against their religion to kill a crazy man. I guess if Soapy recognized
the sack he thought it was a job of some kind."

"Do as many men come over this Pass as over the White Pass?"

"More! The Chilkoot is the poor man's Pass. Most of the fellows who come
over here haul their own stuff, and pack it over the summit, or hire
the Siwashes to put it to the summit, and haul from here themselves.
They get it up here, and then, when they get a fine day, run it through
to Lindeman or Bennett, where they build their boats. An outfit is
putting in an aerial tram: that is, a cable from the foot of the big
hill to the top."

"This summit is too steep for horses?"

"Oh, yes. It's as much as an ordinary man wants to climb it light, and
it's much worse with a pack on your back, though a Siwash staggered up
the other day with a cask of tar weighing three hundred and fifty
pounds. The sad part of it was that then he could not get his five
cents, a pound for his work!--at least he came to one of our fellows,
who told him to hide the barrel in the snow and not show the owner where
it was, till he got his money. Wait till you see the hill! It is one of
the most remarkable sights, I fancy, ever seen in the world's history:
thousands of men toiling in line up nine hundred feet of almost
perpendicular ascent--for what?--to be given a chance of drowning
themselves in the Yukon, or of dying of disease in the Dawson country!"

The time came for the evening meal; but the storm still raged outside
and the weather remained cold. It would be hard to conceive more
miserable surroundings! The heat given out by the stove was scarcely
felt six feet away, and the icy floor, snow walls, and flimsy roof
sapped the body's heat. Darkness came, and bed-time. Two policemen
offered to share their bed with the guests, so that the strangers had
somewhere to lay their heads.

It appeared to John that he had just fallen to sleep when he was
awakened by the sentry calling to all hands to dress, as water was
overflowing the ice and coming into the tent. So up all hands got,
hastily dressing in the frosty atmosphere. By the uncertain light of a
few flickering candles water was to be seen entering the tent; and what
was the best move was a matter of discussion, till one policeman
suggested that sleighs be hauled into the tent, and the beds built on
them. This was done, but not before a good portion of the bedding had
become wet.

Let any one who desires a picture of the hardships which policemen and
civilians went through in those dreadful Passes imagine the poor fellows
living in tents, with water six inches deep within, a storm surging
without--and the thermometer many degrees below freezing-point! It was
three more days ere the wind ceased to blow, and for those three days
the police and their guests existed under distressing conditions. At the
end of the three days milder weather came; but the water still remained
on the ice, so that it was plain the camp must be moved. Preparations
were being made to do this when John and Hugh bade their kindly hosts
good-bye.




CHAPTER XI

ANOTHER PASS


John and Hugh could not resist the temptation of looking at the
far-famed Chilkoot Pass ere they turned for the last time from the Great
Divide. So they mounted the steep ascent from Crater Lake to the summit.
Reaching this, they found a great array of caches, or drifts of snow,
the formation of which suggested a cache beneath them. A half-dozen
policemen were levelling the new site for their tents.

"A desperate situation for an encampment!" said John; but there was no
other.

Looking down the Pass it presented a picture like nothing so much as a
great funnel, with the side towards the sea broken out. Through this
passage from the sea a long line of ant-like figures, human beings, each
laden with his load, was pouring towards them.

The town of Lindeman was reached at three o'clock; at five they arrived
at Bennett. Dude rose up from his bed on the snow and looked at them;
but the four other dogs were bundles of fur before the camp, refusing to
give even a silent welcome.

"Hurrah!" cried Bruce, "here you are at last; I knew you would turn up
safe and sound, so stayed home to have something hot ready."

The two were ready for another meal; and as George had set up the camp
stove in the tent they were comfortable.

As soon as his partners had started on the morning of the storm, George
had set to work and put up the stove in the tent, and for the balance of
the day, till the storm came, had been cutting firewood--with no other
idea than to keep busy. And great was his reward! for he had enough to
do and to think of to keep him supplied during the storm and the severe
weather that followed. Then, at seven or eight o'clock, after the snow
had been falling several hours, a low wail came from outside the tent
door. Dude!

"You got the note on Dude's collar?" inquired Hugh.

"Yes; but I didn't go after the grub, being too anxious about you."

"That was right. The chechachoes will have the trail beaten for us
to-morrow. I only sent it in case we did not turn up, which we came
pretty near not doing! How have your neighbours been getting on: doing
much quarrelling?"

"No; they have had too much trouble keeping warm, and have limited their
disputes as to who should go out into the storm and cut wood. They
weren't as lucky as I in having a good supply at hand."

How the wanderers appreciated their warm bed under the lynx-skin robe
that night! for in their late abode the chill of the ice and water had
seemed to penetrate to their bones!

The next day Hugh took a piece of canvas, and with a needle fashioned a
sail, after which he fixed a mast in the front of the sleigh and set the
sail.

"You see," he explained, "when spring sets in the wind generally blows
from the south, and we might as well make it work for us."

As it did when they started on the morning following. A breeze from the
south filled the sail and helped the sleigh over the frozen surface of
Lake Bennett.

It was three o'clock, and as they were close upon the end of March the
days were lengthening wonderfully, so that they had not been an hour on
the trail when daylight came.

As the light increased so did the wind, which relieved the dogs of
almost all the weight of the load. The trail was good, and by eleven
o'clock they had travelled the twenty miles to Caribou Crossing,
the site of the present town of Car-Cross. Here Hugh called a
halt, declaring they had done a good day's work, and that the
recently-abandoned camping-ground at which they then were was too good
to pass. So the dogs were unhitched, and their evening meal put to boil.
While this was in process the tent was erected and the bed made.

The second day out from Lake Bennett was much like the first; and so it
was until the fourth day, when they reached Miles Canyon and the White
Horse rapids. From Lake Bennett they passed Windy Arm to Tagish Lake;
and on Marsh Lake, which followed, they got more away from the
mountains, when their range of vision became greater.

When they arrived at the foot of Marsh Lake, which merged into Miles
Canyon, they found a number of men putting in a tramway, over which
horses would haul freight when navigation opened, thus covering the five
miles and avoiding the danger of the canyon and the rapids.

They hauled their load along the route of the tramway to below the
rapids, where the waters of the Yukon are known as the Fifty Mile River.
Here they found a number of men building boats, but they kept steadily
on.

Below White Horse Rapids fewer men were on the trail. Some they met were
travelling south, gaunt and haggard, unshaven, uncouth, loud of voice
and wild of eye. These men had travelled the long trail from
Dawson--five hundred miles it was; and the heavy toil and hard food had
told on their minds and natures.

The party covered the fifteen miles from White Horse to where the Fifty
Mile enters Lake Le Berge, when the crust had become so soft that they
could not travel, so they camped. Recently the trail had taken on new
conditions, that of standing higher than the snow on either hand, like
the back of a great serpent. The fact was that the general level of snow
was settling under the warmth of the sun, while the trail, being packed
hard, remained as it was.

The tent was up and the bed made by noon. Hugh planned that the party
should go to bed at three, and "hit the trail" again at midnight. There
would be no wind to aid them further, for, as they left the coast range,
the diurnal breeze had failed. Their own efforts, and those of the dogs,
must haul the load the final stage of thirty miles to the foot of Lake
Le Berge, where they were to build their boat.

They ate their dinner and spread spruce boughs, over which they placed
their blankets, and enjoyed a rest in the glorious sunlight.

The view from the tent was beautiful. To the north lay the stretch of
the lake, on either hand of which were great rounded hills--all
dazzling white. To the south, far distant, were heavy ranges of
mountains. The air was that of peace and hope, and seemed full of
promise of the glorious summer soon to burst over this vastness of
solitude, melting the snows, and flooding the hillsides with floral
beauty.

Presently they saw two black specks crossing the frozen lake far
beneath, which eventually proved to be two human figures
approaching--one some distance behind the other. The first was hauling a
sled, slowly, and evidently with difficulty. Hugh at once acted. He put
the kettle to boil, and filled a frying-pan with beans and bacon.

"I guess those fellows coming up the lake will need a little grub when
they get here," he explained; "at least they can drink tea, if they are
too plumb played out to eat."

The actions of the leading man were very erratic. Frequently he would
stop, place his hand before his eyes, and when again he endeavoured to
start would stagger, plunging into the softened snow, which broke under
him, bringing him to the knees.

"Snow-blind," was Hugh's comment.

The stranger seemed to smell the smoke from the camp fire, and gave a
wild "Hullo!" The three answered the call. He turned towards the sound,
and when he saw the camp he shook himself free of the harness and
plunged through the soft snow towards it. When he saw the blankets
stretched before the tent he threw himself on them at full length, and
with his fingers at his eye-sockets groaned.

Sympathy being often better expressed by doing nothing, the man was left
in his misery for some ten minutes. Hugh then poured him out a cup of
tea, to which was added much sugar and condensed milk. The man raised
his head at a word, and showed his blackened face, made horrible by the
streaks of tears and perspiration. He drank the refreshment greedily.
Hugh explained the man's curious appearance.

"This fellow has been taking a leaf out of the Siwash's book in
blackening his face. The black saves the eyes a whole lot from the glare
of the sun."

The campers turned their attention to the second traveller, now plainly
in sight, and noticed that the pack on his back jolted him horribly, as
he broke through the trail at every third or fourth step. As he wore
glasses, he was evidently not in distress from his eyes. He saw the
camp, staggered to it, and threw himself down, pack and all, sitting
with his back against the load. He stared at the man in agony on the
blankets.

"Hello! there's Bill! Ha! I told the blame fool not to travel without
glasses. Wake up, Bill, and tell us your dreams. How's that wife you're
so struck on outside, and you in such a hurry to give your dust to! Ho!
Bill, wake up!"

As the prostrate man gave no sign of hearing, his hilarious companion
turned to the others, and in more moderate tones continued,

"Bill and me have come from Dawson together, and he has near killed
himself--me, too--trying to get out and see his wife and kids; and this
morning nothing would do him but he must go and tramp on his glasses,
and bust them. I told him to lay up to-day and travel to-night, but he
wouldn't. Must keep moving to get to his wife. Ha! Wife be damned! I
ain't got no wife."

Hugh interrupted the tirade.

"Have some beans?"

"Sure thing! Beans--yes; nothing like beans on the trail; besides, I
don't mind eating your beans, seeing my own grub pile is most petered
out. Just a little flour and baking-powder left; not much good to travel
on."

The man fell to eating. His manner turned from hilarity to morosity. He
bolted his food. Soon his companion on the blankets moved, and gasped,
"Don't let that hog eat all the beans; I want some."

"Ha! I thought Bill wasn't dead: you're just a bluffer, ain't you, Bill?
Say! Bill, let's turn round and go back to Dawson. We can travel along
with these fellows: they have lots of grub, and we can buy off them."

It was evident to John and his friends that--if the first stranger was
the worse affected in physical condition--the second was mentally the
more upset. The snow-blinded sufferer raised himself and took from Hugh
the plate of beans and a second cup of tea. This man ate slowly, while
his partner continued to talk.

"You see, me and Bill came from Dawson together; and when we got to
Thirty Mile we found it open, and the blame sleigh was always sliding
into the open water. I wanted Bill to chuck the sleigh and pack our grub
and blankets; but Bill wouldn't. So I says, 'I'll pack my half, and you
can haul your half,' and that's the way we've been coming. Bill had a
hell of a time with his sleigh sliding into the river; and then, coming
up the lake, he never could keep it on the trail. No wonder he's
bughouse!"[7]

[7] Crazy.

When the first arrival had finished his meal Hugh led him into the tent
and bathed his eyes with fresh-made tea. In the tent the sufferer was
free from the glare of the sun. Hugh hung a dark grey blanket from the
ridge pole, so that if the sufferer opened his eyes he could fix his
gaze upon it. Then he went out.

"How's Bill?" asked the erratic one.

"Better, I hope."

"Not bughouse yet?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, if he ain't bughouse, he is sure locoed on that wife of his."

Hugh made no reply, and the other continued,

"Ha! that's Bill Stanbridge; owns in on Eldorado with Slim Mulligan,
who's in charge now, and will look after the clean-up. My name is Frank
Miller; just blew in about the time Carmack made discovery, but went and
used my rights on Boulder Creek. Boulder showed up better on surface
than Bonanza or Eldorado, but there's nothing on bed-rock in Boulder."

As the man got his mind away from his partner, his conversation
indicated less disorder of intellect. Hugh, quickly noticing the change,
and with a view to further the good process, asked,

"How's Dawson?"

"Dawson! She's fine. Lots of grub. Old Healey gave the boys a speel last
fall that they'd all starve if they stayed in the country, and then the
speculators corralled all the grub and run up prices; but they're
loosening now. You can get a pretty good meal of beans now for two
dollars and a half--even at Miss Mulrooney's. Say! that girl is making
money."

"How's Bonanza?"

"Good; but Eldorado is better. Bill's go ground, some of it going five
hundred dollars to the pan for picked dirt. But this high grade pay! The
Government is going to send their yellow-legs round to relieve the boys
of ten per cent., and fellows with poor ground will have to pay as well
as the fellows on Eldorado. That ain't fair!"

"It's fair to charge for the administration of the country and keeping
law and order," said George.

"To hell with law and order! You're a chechacho, or you wouldn't talk
like that. Miners' meetings make pretty good law-courts; and now they
have law and order, fellows begin to lock their doors. The country was a
whole lot better before ever it saw an official."

"Yes; but the gang going in now will make things different," said Hugh.

"You're an old-timer?... Thought so when I first swallowed your beans.
Chechachoes don't know how to boil beans like that. You'll find a big
change round Rabbit Creek when you blow in there. It's gamblers and
saloon men most have the good claims. Of course Carmack had to put his
wife's relations in next to him on discovery; and when the crowd got up
from Forty Mile they staked on Boulder Gulch and Adams Gulch. Neither
any good--but say! they've got Dawson a hot town." He laughed. "Games
running night and day; all the fun you want, but no gun-play; the
yellow-legs will put you on the wood-pile right away quick, if ever you
make a break; and it ain't no fun to be sawing wood at forty below, with
a yellow-legs and a Winchester standing over you--for the glory of the
Queen of England!"

Frank Miller's mind was lapsing.




CHAPTER XII

A NEW PARTNER


Frank Corte stood at the door of his kitchen and, with a large smile,
eyed the coming of the party. The new-comers were evidently going to
build their boat at the foot of Le Berge; and already he had favourably
sized them up.

There were many tents pitched around the cabin where Frank distributed
the necessities of human sustenance; but Dude's instincts drew him to
the kitchen, and down he and his canine followers flopped before the
door.

"Well! well! fine dogs, nice day, strangers. Going to build boat here?
yes, thought so. Thirty Mile is open to the Hootalink, and the Lewis is
getting holes in it. Early spring, sure!"

Frank's heart was hospitable; but the cost of grub was high: moreover,
the grub he cooked was not his. He was debating how far his hospitality
could go.

Frank Corte was a Hungarian by birth, and a citizen of the United States
of America, which he proudly announced as opportunity offered. He was
over six feet tall, with long arms, stooping shoulders, and an angular
form. His physical strength was enormous: there was a wealth of native
kindness in his heart. His chief diversion was argument, in
which--thanks to his study of the Bible, and a small, besmeared
pocket-edition of Webster's Dictionary--he was rather effective. He
could argue with any one; or even on necessity address his convictions
to the little red-haired female dog that was ever at his heels. Frank
thought the world of Fanny.

"Say! fellows, it's against orders to feed pilgrims, though I guess you
ain't altogether tenderfeet; but if you wants to boil your tea and cook
grub on my stove, you're welcome. Come right in and cook up."

"No, thanks," said Hugh, "though I guess I will leave the team here and
mooch round and get a good camping-place. I guess we'll be here three
weeks, and might as well set up our tent in a good place. We're not
hungry."

"That's right; and you can't have a better camping-ground than right
over against that bunch of spruce." Frank was interested in these
strangers, and his desire for news stimulated his hospitality; so he
continued, "Come right in and feed up, and look for your camping-ground
after. Days are getting long now."

Hugh hesitated, and then accepted. Frank put on more wood, to which the
tin stove quickly responded.

"How's Soapy?" he inquired.

"Fine," replied Hugh, "hold-ups galore. The people of Skagway have a
murder nearly every morning for breakfast!"

"Say! what a time Soapy would have if they only let him operate around
Dawson--wouldn't he make a killing! But them police! They don't have any
more excitement beyond the games and dance-halls in Dawson than they do
outside. That's no mining-camp for a country like this, and the crowd
what's inside there now. I don't like to see too much killing, but a
hold-up now and again is interesting!--besides, these rich claim-owners
can stand it. A fellow was telling me that it was nothing to see the
'Big Moose'[8] coming into Dawson, last summer, with ten or twenty
thousand dollars tied to his saddle, and him without a guard! Say! we're
going to have a squaw-dance Friday night in the dining-room here, will
you come? One of our fellows has an accordion, and we'll have fine
music. Only four bits a dance. I'm going to try and get some hootch.
There's nothing like hootch to get the squaws on the move--if the
yellow-legs don't get on to it. They soak you like the devil if they
catch you at it, though. Say! how's Uncle Sam getting on licking them
there Spaniards?--he'll do them up in about three weeks. I'd like to be
outside to go to the Philippines. After he gets through with the
Spaniards he's going to come in and take Canada,"--and here Frank stole
side-glances at Hugh's companions; but his instincts of hospitality
stayed him from this, his favourite joke.

[8] Indian name for the late Alexander McDonald.

"Say! where did you get those dogs? Fine team!"

"Three I got inside; the others in Skagway."

"I thought you was no chechacho. You come from Uncle Sam's country,
don't you?"

"I come from all over: what's this outfit you're with?"

"Jack Haskins is building two scows to take down some freight he hauled
in over the ice. He has me cooking for him, though I could get $250.00
in Dawson for the same job. He only pays me $150.00 per month; but I'll
soon be in with the best of them. Say! if you fellows is going to build
a boat, I'll ask Jack if you can't use one of his pits. He has two, and
I guess you fellows can get the chance to use one of his pits for all
the lumber you want--and that will save you building one. I'm glad you
fellows have showed up--it will make more company--and I hope you'll
come to our dance. You'll see the squaw-camp down the river a bit.
They're out from Dalton House, came out to Tagish, visiting some
Siwashes there, and drifted down here, just to take in the sights! Are a
bit shy, though some have picked up a little English."

"Here is another human study," thought John, as he and his friends moved
over to the point suggested for their encampment. They found it
satisfactory, so went back for the dogs.

"Say! if you fellows want anything in the way of dishes, or if you're
real short of any grub, maybe I can let you have it on the sly," said
Frank to the party as they returned, his hospitality getting ahead of
his morals. But Hugh assured him the party was fixed up all right.

Frank's generosity was of the aggressive kind, for as John Berwick's
party sat in their tent that evening he stuck his head in at the door
and said they could have the use of one of Haskins' saw-pits on the
morrow, and probably right along.

"Don't work too hard, for I want you to be lively on Friday night! Two
fellows have just blown in from Dawson, and they say the river is full
of holes; so it is just as well you fellows don't have to build a pit;
it looks like an early opening, maybe about the first of May."

"The river won't open by the first of May, but it will before the tenth,
most likely," commented Hugh.

Next morning the party visited the yard where the scows were building,
and introduced themselves to Mr. Haskins, who again informed them that
the saw-pits were at their disposal when he did not require them.

"Ever do any whip-sawing?" asked Haskins.

"Some," said Hugh.

"It's no picnic."

"I never found it so. How's timber? That looks pretty good up the hill
there," and Hugh pointed to a clump of spruce.

"Yes, it's all right; but you'll find bigger and clearer stuff higher
up, and you can mush it down the hill easy. I suppose you have your own
saw?"

With this the three friends stormed the hill. They were to cut the trees
and slide them to the bottom, after which the dogs would aid in hauling
them to the pit. The trees Hugh selected were the larger ones, clean and
free from knots. By the close of the day sufficient logs were at the
pit.

A saw "pit" is a scantling of poles eight feet high, on which the logs
are placed to be sawn. The _modus operandi_ is that one man stands below
the log and another on the top: the upper man pulls the saw towards him,
the lower man co-operates. The work is simplicity itself, but very hard.
The three companions would want from two to three hundred feet of
lumber, which meant perspiration and backache. As Hugh expressed it,
"the upper man is up against about the hardest proposition a white man
puts himself at, these days."

About three o'clock on the first afternoon of whip-sawing Frank Corte
appeared with Fanny at his heels. George was the upper man, and even his
elastic muscles were aching at the work. Hugh was having a spell off,
but keeping an eye on his friends.

"Ha! how do you fellows like hard work? This will teach you to go
hunting after gold! What have you done with your last summer's wages?
Say! we're going to have a great time at the dance--a regular potlatch:
one of the Sticks has just come in saying he's killed a caribou back on
the hills, and is going to potlatch it. Now if I can only get some
hootch! I'd give ten dollars a bottle for some."

"Better cut the hootch out," said Hugh. "The police may catch you and
send you down to Dawson; and put you sawing wood for Queen Victoria. And
it won't be Uncle Sam's men who will be chasing you with a Winchester."

"Yes, yes. A damned pity Uncle Sam would not come over and take Canada:
then we should have a camp at Dawson."

George was very hot and sore; and this sort of bantering was new to
him. He was in that humour which causes a man to go into a fight on
little provocation; but John, he noticed, was smiling amicably, so he
held his peace.

"If this was Uncle Sam's country, Soapy would have been here taking away
your wages before this," laughed Hugh.

"I wouldn't kick if he could do the trick. Say! can you dance? This is
going to be a swell dance all right! Wish I had enough lumber to cover
the floor, so we could dance proper. Poles is mighty hard to dance on.
Well, I must be going--I have some beans boiling. Don't you fellows tire
yourselves too much sawing lumber, so you can't dance to-morrow night."




CHAPTER XIII

THE DANCE


"Are you all set? Then dance! damn you, dance! Come on, gentlemen, get
partners for the next."

Frank Corte's great dance was on. Hugh and his companions stood by the
door of the dining-hall. On went the dance; and through the
atmosphere--thick with tobacco-smoke--the native women were guided,
their bronzed faces speaking excitement.

"Come on in, gentlemen!"

The walls of the room were lined with men. Squaws, who had not yet
learned the dance, sat on boxes. The three friends crowded into the room
and stood with their backs against the wall. Frank Corte was beating
time with his foot and clapping his hands, while he sang the calls in a
weird drawl.

"Honours to the right." Each man bowed most gravely to his partner, who
most respectfully returned it. "Honours to the left." Each man bowed to
the lady at his left in the quadrille: and when "Swing your right-hand
lady; dance around the room" came, the men grabbed their partners and
whirled around--quarters were too close to permit of any great range of
movement, and the squaws were so excited, they seemed to occupy more
room than really they did.

"A la main left." All stood to attention. "First gent swing the
left-hand lady, with the left hand round."

Every gentleman turned towards the lady on his left. The ladies turned
to the right. They grasped left hands at the height of their shoulders,
and pranced round to the left.

"The left hand round.--Turn your partners, with the right hand,
round.--The right hand round.--All chassez!--First couple lead to the
right.--Four hand round.--Dos a balnette.--Right hand to partner, and
grand dos a balnette." Every man took his partner's right hand and
wheeled to the right; and then her left hand. This movement brought them
opposite, and so they were in a circle, at which they balanced, the men
facing outwards, the women inwards.

"On to the next!"

The men wheeled, and with their ladies pivoted to the left; then the men
took the hand of the ladies next on their right as they swung round. The
ladies holding the men by the left gave their right hand, and at the
words "dos a balnette," all again balanced--the men this time facing
inwards, the ladies outwards.

"On the next!"--again brought the men facing outwards, the ladies
inwards--and so on. The quadrille was concluded with,

                 "Promenade all
                  Around the hall,
                  And seat your ladies at the ball."

The faces of the crowd were wild with excitement. The music was weird
and discordant. Yet John found it all very stimulating. Dance after
dance was gone through, while he stayed and watched, till there came to
his mind pictures of the old home--his father's house in London, and
Alice Peel! Was she thinking of him?

"Say! why don't you fellows get in and dance?"

Dreams and fancies were reft away as reality, in the person of Haskins
of the saw-pits, stood before John Berwick. Then he noticed George
laughing at a clumsy mystified squaw, a beginner in the dance. His
hilarity provoked the squaw, and, as the dance paused for a second,
between her gasps and through her perspiration she hissed with a look of
contempt,

"Che--chac. Ka!"

"Say! you fellows will have to get in and dance in this next set. I saw
a squaw looking at you and saying 'heap dam dood,' so if you want to
keep your station in society you've got to dance." Haskins was again
worrying them.

"All right. Who will I ask to dance?" George was ready.

"Go and ask that squaw sitting in the corner," said Haskins, pointing
across the room. She it was who had said "Heap dam dood."

George went and invited her to be his partner.

"Ni--ka halo introdux" (You have not been introduced), she answered.

This was more than George could withstand in gravity. He roared with
laughter and returned to Haskins. He only guessed the meaning of the
words, so he repeated them to Haskins.

"Who the devil has taught these savages up here chinook! It's a special
lingo manufactured by the Hudson Bay Company to suit the savages, and
when white men first came into British Columbia they found the savages
with a lingo which was called white man's wa-wa, and which no person
could understand; it is easy enough to learn, you can pick it up in a
week; it has only about six hundred words. All the old-timers in British
Columbia talk it. Dagoes, Chinese, Mexicans, Swedes, all talked it in
the old days in Caribou. The Siwash calls an Englishman 'King George
man' and an American 'Boston man.'"

The squaw in the corner was keeping her eye on George with evident
dislike. As John noticed this he recommended their departure; so George
and he went back to bed. Hugh arrived home hours later in great glee.

"You fellows will laugh at the Siwashes, eh? Well--you'll get the worst
of it. George, I hear you were not sufficiently formal with one of the
klootches (squaws), and got called down--ha, ha!"

On the Sunday morning following John left Hugh and George repairing
their wardrobe in the tent, and was strolling past Frank Corte's kitchen
to where the scows were being built.

"Hullo! how's the 'heap dam dood'? Come in, I want to argue with you."

John looked up and saw the smiling face of Frank at his kitchen door. He
had no great wish to argue; but he loved the study of humanity, and
realized that Frank was something of a conundrum.

Corte, who was kneading bread, took a seat on a box by the kitchen door.

"Say! don't you think it would be a good thing for this country if Uncle
Sam was really to come over and take it?"

"I hope not. What's the matter with it as it is?"

"Too much police--too much law and order; you can never have a real live
mining-camp in Canada."

"That was a pretty good dance you had Friday night."

"Yes, it was all right; but what a time we would have had if we had had
lots of hootch! But say! that was a good one when the squaw told the
other 'King George man' he had not been introduced to her!"

Frank chuckled; and then, as the prospect of an international argument
did not seem good, went on another tack.

"Do you believe there is a God?"

A flood of memories surged through Berwick's brain.

He glanced at the dark sinister features of the man awaiting his reply
and then looked at the sunlight. Should he give such an answer in such a
tone as would discourage further argument? No--the question was too
serious. He might not have felt called upon at one time to divulge his
belief, which in the past had been a burden of much questioning; but
here it was asked, perhaps in levity, by one who evidently could not
fully believe. He felt called upon to answer,

"Yes, I do."

Corte's face had taken on a strained look. Realizing the seriousness
with which Berwick regarded the question, he feared lest he had hurt the
feelings of his guest. The answer he received reassured him. Removing
his big arms from the dough, and gesticulating, he answered,

"Well, partner, I don't. Now here's the proposition: those who say there
is a God say what He set out to do. The first thing God done was to
build the world; and after He done this He built a mighty fine ranch and
fixed it up A1; and then He puts Adam and Eve into it, after having made
them. He tells them not to eat apples--and then He goes and has a snake
which tells them to eat apples. And because they do eat apples He pulls
up the ranch and kicks them out. Now there would be no kick coming if He
simply turned them loose and made them rustle--having to rustle never
hurt any man--but He brings all sorts of diseases and pains on earth.
That's what keeps me from believing in God.

"Now look here; if God was able to make the earth, and the stars, and
everything, why should He not make man and let him enjoy all
this--seeing that He is doing it all more or less for amusement--without
putting him in the middle of a lot of good things and then putting up a
job on him? I've talked to parsons on this thing, and some of them says
that after He bust up the home ranch He kind of got sorry, and says He
would send His Son on earth to die--to fix up the big mistake Adam and
Eve made in eating one apple. Now, say! If you was doing all this, would
you, after you made man, and put him on the earth and he did wrong,
would you send your son to fix things up so that the crowd would go and
nail him to a big wooden cross by driving big stakes through his hands
and feet--and then stick him up for the crows to peck at? If God was not
able to make a man the first go off who would stand a mill-test, why did
He not kill him off, body and soul, and try again without trying to fix
things up by making His Son suffer? The whole proposition ain't natural.
And what would you think of a man who, if he fell down on any
proposition, would make his son go and suffer to fix up his mistakes?
Why did He not come on earth and die on the cross Himself, and suffer,
and turn the earth and all the stars and the rest of it over to His Son
to run while He was gone?"

John Berwick was not by nature argumentative, having seldom in his life
allowed himself to be drawn into any but political controversy. He had,
it is true, discussed doctrine at college with his class-mates. He had
read much philosophy, and had pondered deeply on the mystery of human
suffering--the deepest of all mysteries. He had weighed the arguments of
great minds which wanted belief in God, and in his own mind had done
much to surmount the difficulty, to justify the ways of God to man; but
the crude intellect before him had launched forth a proposition he could
not confute. His training in rhetoric and in the drawing of parallels
was of use only against the cultured mind. The legend of the Saxon king
drawing the simile of life from the little bird which flew within the
hall firelight and was gone again came to his mind, but he put it aside
as impotent. He did not know what to say; he said nothing.

Frank Corte was working at his bread again, his face twitching with a
smile.

"And then there's miskities, and black flies, and moose flies, and
bull-dogs. Say! wait a month or two till the miskities get busy, and
then try and figure out how any great and good God would put such things
on earth! These devils ain't in cities where men is, but in the country
where the beasts is. Have you ever seen a big bull-moose going hell-bent
for election through the bush chased by flies? Have you ever shot a
bear, with his eyes and ears and nose full of flies, and the flies
sticking all round his eyes, enough to drive even a bear plumb crazy?
Why should God, because man went and eat an apple, make animals suffer
in trying to get even?"

Frank Corte returned to the kneading, while John Berwick thoughtfully
watched the sun-flooded landscape.

"Frank," he said, after a pause, "'the proof of the pudding is the
eating.' I have never heard any argument quite like yours, but man's
coming to the world, how he came to the world, and whether he has a soul
have been the greatest subjects of study through the ages. We know the
Christian religion was taught back to within a few years of the time
Christ came on earth; and from that time on has got bigger in power and
influence over the minds of men, so that the majority of civilized
people give justice to their fellows because this religion tells them to
do so.

"The Bible tells a story of the origin of man, which we may or may not
believe. The Bible says there is a God; and God sees best not to explain
His schemes and why He makes man and animals suffer. I believe there is
a God, and that God is just, and that there is a reason for everything.
Why not try to believe there is a God, rather than argue with yourself
and others that there is no God? If the Christian belief has made the
world so much better as a whole, it will make you and me better as
single men; and I know you would give a man a meal if he wanted it; or
if a fellow were sick you would help him out all you could, and you'd
expect me to do the same. If you saw a fellow drowning in the river
you'd help him out; but the Chinaman, who is not a Christian, would let
him drown. You're a Christian all right; but you don't know it."

John paused, and would have added something; but Frank, his face half
flushed in confusion, his voice less rasping than usual, broke in,

"Say! stranger, when I first saw you I sized you up along with the
Siwashes as a 'heap dam dood,' though I didn't like to say it
serious-like; but that's a pretty good talk of yours, and, sure, sounds
natural. Say! is that other 'King George man' with you as good a fellow
as you are? Say! you've set me thinking!"

Frank had set Berwick thinking too.




CHAPTER XIV

A LONG SHOT


Hugh Spencer was working as upper man on the whip-saw, and an Indian was
trying to extract a cartridge from an old and rusty rifle at his camp
down the river. Suddenly there was a report, and Hugh tumbled headlong
from his position. His friends sprang to his side, and found blood
spurting from a hole in his neck.

The flow was not great, so that their first feeling of horror was
changed to hopefulness. John shouted and waved to Haskins, whom he saw
standing near his scows. Haskins came running up, was told what had
happened, and with the single word, "Wait!" bolted to his tent. He was
back again in little more than a minute, with a camp-bed, blankets and
all. Few words were spoken, and those in whispers. The injured man was
lifted on to the bed, and carried to the tent, his temporary home.

"George, hot water." George was off to the cook-tent at the word, while
Haskins got Hugh on his side, the wound uppermost, and Frank arrived
hurriedly.

"Boracic acid out of the medicine bag; Frank, you light the fire, and
then take off Hugh's boots."

"It don't look as if it was bad," said Haskins, when the wound was
washed.

"No," replied John, "I don't think the bullet is far in, it is the shock
that has knocked him out; but I have no instruments with which to get
the bullet out, and even if I were able to draw it, it might be followed
by a rush of blood I should not know how to stop; and then there is the
danger of blood poisoning."

"A doctor with his partner is building a boat at White Horse," said
Haskins.

"Good! I'll get him! George, you know what to do. Keep a good watch, and
when he comes round keep him quiet."

John left the tent, and saw four of the dogs before Frank's kitchen.

"See anything of Dude?" he called to Frank.

"Yes, he was in front of my kitchen all the afternoon." Frank looked out
of the tent door. "Say! I've left my door open. I bet he's stole
something!" They ran to look. "Yes, a side of bacon's gone. Damn that
'dood'--'heap dam dood,' he!" Frank's sense of humour could not be
suppressed by any calamity; but its expression did not stay his
activities. He was out of his kitchen and peering into the bushes on the
hillside.

"Yes, I thought so; there he is, been up to his cache I located the
other day; he's done quick work and is coming back. Don't call him,
he'll come quicker without, and he may think we want to lick him for
thieving. Come inside."

It seemed an age before the reprobate reappeared before the cabin.

"Don't let on you see him, but walk by and grab him," whispered Frank.

John followed the instructions and was successful.

"Where's the harness?" asked Frank.

"With the sleigh at the tent. I'll get it."

"Here, Two Bits; here, Four Bits; here, Tom, Jerry," and Frank had the
team in harness. "Dude!"

Dude went to his place in the lead.

"Hold on a minute."

Frank went into the kitchen, and returned with half a loaf of bread and
some fried bacon, in a piece of birch bark.

"Throw this into you as you go."

"How about the dogs?"

"Damn the dogs; I've been feeding them all day."

"Mush!"

Dude looked back and did not move.

"Mush!" He moved ahead at a slow walk.

"Mush, damn you!" John felt surprised to hear himself swear; but the
dogs were in the condition styled "ornery." Dude turned in by the side
of the building, the others followed; the sleigh bumped against the
corner. Frank had Dude by the collar in a moment, and was belabouring
him over the flank with a stout stick. The hills reverberated with
howls. He hauled the animals back into line, and with a kick for good
measure, said in a cold slow tone,

"Mush."

Dude trotted off. Frank ran by the side of the team till they were on
the lake. "They'll go all right if you once get them away from camp, but
lick 'em good and plenty if they turn mean," was his counsel on
quitting.

John Berwick was alone with the team on the great expanse of Lake Le
Berge. Before him, to the south, lay the thirty-mile stretch of ice,
flanked by rolling hills, flooded with opalescent tints and peace. For
an instant the exceeding beauty of the scene gladdened his mind.

He was anxious about Hugh. There were forty-five miles to traverse
before he would come to White Horse. The dogs were travelling at five
miles an hour: nine hours before he could reach White Horse; and then,
if the river were open, what then? The thought of the delay necessitated
by a journey overland staggered him. It were easier to travel thirty
miles on the ice than fifteen through the bush. He jumped off the sleigh
and ran; but the dogs moved no faster; and the labour in running would
soon exhaust him, for while there was no snow on the ice, the surface of
the lake was a coarse ice-sand, which constituted a poor foothold. The
sun was setting; already a chill was in the air. A crust would form
within the hour; perhaps the dogs would move faster then.

These thoughts ran through his mind, till his fear developed into a
lingering dread. He realized that to go through that intolerable process
of analyzing the details of his anxiety could only result in futility.
The surface of the lake became harder; he picked up pieces of ice, threw
them at Dude, and shouted. Every missile, with its accompanying shout,
brought a merely temporary increase of speed. All attempts to get the
dogs to gallop proved futile.

It was three o'clock on the following morning when Berwick pounded on
the door of the police cabin at White Horse, and was greeted sleepily.

He entered. The flicker of a match showed a man in the act of lighting a
candle by the head of a bed built against the wall.

"Man shot at the foot of Le Berge; bullet in his neck; wants doctor."

The policeman jumped from bed, slipped to the door, and pointed to a
tent by the river-side.

"The doctor with his partner live in that tent. What is it--accident?"

"Yes; Indian trying to extract a cartridge from an old rifle."

"Damn the Siwashes! Same old story. Well, I have no doubt the doctor
will go. I guess you'll need some sleep, so if those fellows can't put
you up, return here, and you can climb into bed with me."

John had intended returning to his friend with the doctor, but bolted
without comment, save a mere "Thank you."

There is no process of knocking at a tent door, so John used his voice
to rouse the occupants.

"What do you want?" was the gruff response.

John gave the necessary information.

"Doc," then said the man to his unseen companion, "there's a chance of
doing the Good Samaritan act the preachers talk about."

There was silence for a while as the doctor and his comrade were
dressing and preparing; then John asked,

"Can I build a fire outside and cook some dog feed? If you will let me
have some feed I'll return it, or pay for it."

"I thought you was a chechacho!" said the gruff voice. "You want the Doc
to travel quick?"

"Certainly."

"And the Doc's taking them dogs home?"

"Yes."

"Well, don't feed them."

John Berwick's nature revolted against this theory; but he made no
protest, as the life of his mate was in jeopardy.

The doctor packed his hand-bag, and was ready.

"You stay here," he said; "you can do no good down there. Roll in and
have a sleep."

Dude was alert, but the other dogs were in repose when they were jerked
into life again. The train moved down the river. Fatigued in body and
mind, Berwick gladly rested and slept.




CHAPTER XV

REVELATION


John awoke at five in the afternoon. At the first opportunity his new
acquaintance began to talk.

"My name's Jim Godson. 'Shorty' the boys call me; sometimes
'Long-Shorty.' That's what you call a blooming paradox, ain't it,
Parson?"

"I'm not a parson."

"Well, if you ain't, you look as if you ought to be. What's your
name?... Oh, is it?... Ain't you got no appellation yet?"

"Not as yet."

"Well, I'll call you Parson Jack, though I guess you look too good a man
for a parson. Parsons is mostly parsons because they're too lazy to
work; and you don't act lazy. No, you ain't lazy; not if you are in tow
with an old-timer."

Godson's light chatter kept away the sense of apprehension which was
ever tending to creep into Berwick's mind.

"Say! I knew a parson once that was worth having. Yes, sir; Father Pat
was his name, and his run was down in the Kootenays. A whiter parson
never lived than Father Pat."

"Father Pat? Was he a Roman Catholic? The Roman clergy are not called
'parsons.'"

"No, sir; he weren't no Catholic; he was an Angle (Anglican)--and a
pretty acute one, too. He was moseying along a trail down below one day,
and was just turning off on a side-trail leading to a mining proposition
up there, when three fellows met him, who were just naturally full of
cussedness. 'How do?' says Father Pat. 'Where are you going?' says the
fellows. 'I'm going up to the mine,' says Father Pat. 'No, you ain't,'
says the fellows. 'But I am,' says Father Pat. 'We don't want no damned
parsons around here,' says the fellows. 'I can't help that,' says Father
Pat, 'I'm going up the hill; and if you fellows want to quarrel over it,
I'll take you one at a time and lick you.' And he did so. Now that's
what I call a parson worth having."

"And which of the three were you?" asked John.

"Me! I was the second fellow that got licked; yes, since then I've
always thought parsons worth looking into."

The time for departure came.

"Go easy for the first two or three miles, Parson; forty-five miles is
a pretty good walk for any fellow who ain't an old-timer. You're making
a mistake not waiting, for the dogs will be back here with the doctor,
even if he has to stay a day or two with your partner; but if you're
stuck on going, I guess I ain't got any string on you."

"Good-bye," said John, and clambered down the river-bank to the ice.

The day had been more than usually warm, the air unusually clear; the
evening frost had come early.

As Berwick left White Horse it was seven, and already the crust had
formed. He had food in his pockets, and the air brought him stimulation.
Anxiety steeled his muscles. Away he strode.

He passed from the curving river, and came again to the frozen stretch
of Lake Le Berge. The light of day was gone; the stars gleamed and
danced, and shed their glamour over the hills. And what dignity they
held! Greece had risen and gone to decay: Caesar had striven after his
great ambition: Pharaoh had succeeded Pharaoh: while those hills had
slept as they now were sleeping.

The influence of his environment closed upon John Berwick. The psychic
force of the weird Northland was upon him. Through his mind passed the
orthodox story of creation; and, again and again, as he walked, he
weighed the various arguments of the agnostic. He looked upon the
limestone masses to the east, and mused upon the ways of Nature, which
caused the destruction of myriads of shell-fish to upbuild the marble of
the palace. He pictured the diamond in the atomic theory of matter--a
mass of pulsating atoms oscillating within magnetic bonds--even as the
stars swing through space, guided by the influence which is called
gravitation. Was not this known movement of the heavenly bodies similar
to the theoretic movement of the atom?

A feeling of apprehension grew in John Berwick; faster and faster he
walked. Life's greatest problems had for years occupied his mind. He
looked about him and into the heavens. Before his fevered eyes the stars
shimmered and grew in shape: the earth beneath him dwindled and melted,
till it was but a star and he felt its rush through space. He realized
the centrifugal force that would throw the world out of its orbit; he
felt the counteracting restraint; system joined to system, swinging,
circling, driving; the universe grew about him; suns and stars were but
atoms in a component whole; the whole formed into Presence--Love! God!

It came to him as a mighty magnificent discovery.

He must hurry to tell Frank Corte!




CHAPTER XVI

A STREAM OF HISTORY


"Good-bye, fellows, wish you all kinds of luck! I won't be long behind
you."

"Good-bye," answered the four from the boat that glided out on the swift
waters of Thirty-Mile River. In the bow stood Hugh Spencer, bandaged; at
the oars were Bruce and Frank Corte; in the stern John Berwick, pale and
weak from his late fever, was resting. A new light shone in his eyes;
the lines of his face were softened. Anxieties which had been as a
weight on his soul had been removed by that revealing walk, which had
ended in catastrophe.

He had been found by the side of the trail some few hours after he had
fallen in delirium. The legs of his trousers were worn at the knees; his
flesh was cut through his struggling after he had fallen. His
finger-tips were worn to the quick; his blood had stained the ice.

The doctor, returning, had been John's rescuer, and had placed him on
the sleigh. Truly a good Samaritan, he had returned with the invalid to
the foot of Le Berge.

Berwick's delirium was the climax of half-a-dozen years of mental
strain. His old struggle as to whether he should make his vocation in
the Church, as well as his almost hopeless passion for Alice Peel, had,
though even George Bruce barely suspected it, wrought upon him. Now the
climax had come; and was passed.

George, seeing this catastrophe, had guessed much; the doctor, trained
in the study of humanity, had also guessed something. Hugh, Frank Corte,
and Haskins only knew that John had played-out on the trail.

Spencer had told his companions there was nothing much in the first six
miles of the river, but that afterwards "she is swift and crooked."
Sunken boulders were the chief danger, so he took his post in the bow to
"read" the water ahead, and to direct the course, saying "Frank" or
"George"--as he wished the one or the other to pull the harder.

After an hour the boat came to a point where the river takes a turn to
the right, on rounding which the boat's pace increased. Looking over its
side into the clear water, John saw the stones at the bottom flash by,
and noted the scurrying greyling affrighted.

The boat swept by sunken boulders, or grazed the curving shores, but
held its swift course without pause or incident. For four hours their
rapid progress continued; then the current died away, and the boat
floated upon the dead water that marks the junction of the Hootalinquia
River with the Thirty Mile, henceforth to be called the Lewis, till
Lewis is joined by the Pelly to become the Yukon.

Now that the necessity for vigilance was past, Hugh entertained his
friends with reminiscences of his first trip there, and the story of the
entrance of the gold-seekers to the Upper Yukon. They would soon be at
Cassiar Bar, and the mouth of the Big Salmon River. In 1881 miners had
crossed the Passes, and descended the lakes and rivers, to the mouth of
the Big Salmon, which they ascended, and obtained gold by washing the
bars. Cassiar Bar was not discovered till 1886, five years after the Big
Salmon party had done their mining. The men who mined Cassiar Bar had
wintered here, and their cabin came in useful for others who "mushed
out" over the ice to give word about Howard Franklin's discovery of
coarse gold on the Forty Mile, and to order more grub to be sent "up
river" by the Alaska Commercial Company's steamer. In 1880 some fellows
from Sitka had gone over, and prospected up the Hootalinquia; but they
did not strike much; while the first white man over the Passes looking
for gold was George Holt, who found a few "colours" around Lake Bennett.
In 1873 Arthur Harper and a British Columbia outfit came up the Liard
and over the Divide; but though they found "prospects" almost everywhere
in the Yukon, they did not make a real strike, so they floated to the
mouth of the Yukon and went to work for the Alaska Commercial Company.

Hugh thus told the history of Yukon--so far as the white man knows it.

Although the ice still clung along the river banks, the land was free of
snow, and vegetable life was asserting itself. The mosquito was very
little behind the grass-shoot in realizing that summer was at hand, and
that it had but a few short months in which to play its part!

It was because sleep on shore would be difficult, through the
mosquitoes, that Hugh suggested their continuing the journey through the
night. One watched and steered while the others slept. So Hugh, George,
and Frank divided the night between them. John asserted that the rest
and change of scene had done him a world of good and that he was able to
steer; but the others squashed his proposals.

"Heap dam dood! heap sick all same baby, he! he!" sniggered Frank Corte.

They had now dropped away from the great mountains, not a snow-topped
peak was in sight; but the hills stretched majestically on either side
of the river.

The routine of watches having been decided, the party settled down to
silence at nine o'clock. Towards midnight John awoke. It was now merging
upon the season of perpetual light, and the hills and the great river
were weirdly visible. George was on watch, sitting on the thwart ahead
of him, his back towards him.

The boat quietly, swiftly glided on. No effort was needed from the man
at the look-out, save an occasional stroke to keep the head straight.
John glanced at his watch and saw the hour. The fact startled him,
though he had schooled himself. In the lands where his previous
existence had been passed the haunts of men were always at this hour
illuminated by artificial light and filled with--artificiality! Here was
the opening of the months-long day; and reality--Reality, the Eternal
Verities. In that wonderful silence he needs must think, and overhaul
his spiritual condition. He could--and he would--take Holy Orders. He
would first fight the issue in the goldfields, for, if he made money,
that power would be useful. So he came to his decision; and at last he
slept.

When he awoke the boat was hauled half-way up one of the Yukon's many
islands, and breakfast was being cooked. The party had travelled one
hundred miles in twenty-four hours; three days more would carry them to
Dawson.

They re-embarked, and, as the same glorious weather prevailed, their
expedition was very like a delightful picnic. In the regions of Tantalus
Buttes the river took a number of great horseshoe bends, which induced
Hugh to remark, "We do a lot of travelling here, without much progress."

Then came Five Finger Rapids, where four great pillars of conglomerate
rock stood ranged across the river. The Yukon's waters were low; the
season of freshets was not due until the snow in the mountains was
melted and the sun had attacked the glaciers; so Hugh said the main or
right-hand channel might be run.

"Run her right on the top of the crest," he ordered.

They approached the rapid, and the current slackened almost to dead
water. They rowed the boat under the cliff to the right of the channel,
and then shot out into the middle, directly on the crest. The current
caught the little craft--there was a swish and swirl of water--she
heaved, and was over the cataract into the dancing waters beyond.

The current remained swifter than it had been above the rapids, and the
party was soon at Rink Rapids, four miles beyond Five Fingers. This
rapid was more dangerous than that of the Five Fingers had been, owing
to its being spread over a wide range of bottom and to the presence of
numerous boulders: however, they shot the boat under the right bank and
glided through in safety. There now remained uninterrupted, smooth water
to Dawson.

They breakfasted at Fort Selkirk, situate on the left bank of the river,
opposite the mouth of the large tributary, the Pelly.

Frank protested that a day's rest would do the party good, particularly
a dance that night, for there was a squaws' camp near.

"You will get all the dancing you have money to pay for in Dawson," said
Hugh.

As the party were again afloat, Hugh pointed across the river, and
remarked,

"Back at that bunch of bush are the ruins of old Fort Selkirk, which
Robert Campbell built for the Hudson Bay Company in the year 1849. In
1852 the Chilkats burned it down, because it was cutting off their trade
with the savages hereabouts. You see, before the Hudson Bay fellows got
in here, the Chilkats, who held the passes to the sea, used to give
inside Indians most nothing for their furs, and sell them at a big
profit to the white traders on the coast. The Chilkats would not let the
inside Indians out to the coast to trade for themselves. Well, when the
Hudson Bay Company showed up, it broke up the cinch the Chilkats thought
their own, and they came after the Company. The Indians then hereabouts,
the wood Indians, got hold of the plans of the Chilkats and kept watch;
but they let up for a few days, and the Chilkats came into the Fort and
told the officers they had to get. It was a ground-hog case, so they
just naturally got! Campbell found the local Indians and came back; but
the Chilkats had cleaned out. The tea, tobacco, and sugar they took away
with them, and what they couldn't take they cached. The Chilkats didn't
offer to do murder, though they are up to most anything. One thing they
took away with them was the Company's flag, which the Chilkats keep at
Kluckwan, their village on the Chilkat River which lies in the valley
just over the mountains west of Skagway. The Chilkats are very proud of
their 'King George man' flag!

"It was on August 21 the Fort was seized, so Campbell had to do
something right away quick, before the winter set in: so, after going
down the Yukon to White River, where he met the remainder of his men,
who had been to Fort Yukon and were coming back, he told them to go back
down the river and winter at Fort Yukon, and he lit out up the Pelly and
over the Divide to the Liard, and down the Liard to Fort Simpson. When
he got there the Liard was running bank full of ice."

The next place that drew reminiscences from Hugh was the mouth of
Stewart River. Here was a police-post with a few cabins.

"In 1885, thirty miles up the Stewart, the first considerable bar
diggings was struck. Dick Popham was up there in 1884, but he did not
find anything--water was too high. Frank Densmore and Johnnie Hughes
brought to Juneau, in the fall of 1885, the news of good gold on the
Stewart; and in 1886 the gang went in, about three hundred. Along with
the gang went George Carmack, but he took up with the Siwashes on the
Chilkoot. You see, when the fellows started in first, the Siwashes
packed from what is now Dyea to Lindeman for nine cents a pound; but as
the boys were in a hurry prices rose to thirty cents--and this was too
much for Carmack, who was a Missourian; besides, he got stuck on a
squaw. I guess he must have stayed with the Siwashes ever since,
travelling among them and living their life till he made the big strike
on Bonanza, which started this here stampede.

"When the boys got to the Stewart diggings, in 1886, they found them
good all right, but not enough to go round; so a lot of them lit out
down the river, away below Fort Yukon, to try some prospects reported
from there. Among the bunch was Bill Hartz--'Web-foot' the boys called
him, because he came from Oregon. Well, those boys tried the lower
diggings, and found them no good; so Web-foot started back up the river
on Jack McQuestion's steamer called the _New Racket_. Jack McQuestion
was trading in the country then, with Arthur Harper and Al Mayo as
partners. He was in the country before Harper, and used to work for the
Hudson Bay Company on the Mackenzie. At this time they had four
posts--one at Fort Selkirk, one at Stewart River, one just below Dawson,
and one about where Eagle City now is. There was a big mountain there
called by Harper Teetotalim.

"At Teetotalim there was a queer sort of fellow from back east in
Canada, a Frenchman, who was always fooling round with bits of rock, and
talking about how the mountains were made. One day a Siwash blew in with
a piece of woolly rock which the Frenchman said was 'Asiebestos,' and,
if there was much of it, it would be worth money; so McQuestion sent out
Web-foot with a grub-stake to find the place. Web-foot did not find the
'Asiebestos,' but he found gold on the Forty Mile, as also did Howard
Franklin, who was sent up the Forty Mile from its mouth by McQuestion.
They came back out, and on up the Yukon to winter at Stewart. Next year
the fellows left Stewart for the Forty Mile, and George Matlock, Billy
Leak, Oscar Ashley, and Percy Walker found Matlock Bar, with coarse
gold, which washed down out of Franklin Gulch. Franklin Gulch was found
in August, 1887. This was the first really coarse gold found in the
Yukon, and the best discovery up to that time.

"While the boys were wintering at Stewart grub got short, and Harper
passed it round, fair and square--not raising the price any. But one day
some stuff was stole, and Harper told the boys, who called a miners'
meeting right off. The boys appointed a committee to go round and search
the cabins, for every fellow was glad enough to clear himself by showing
everything he had. Nothing was found. And then the boys thought of two
fellows, Missouri Bill and Arkansaw Frank, who lived down the river a
bit. And when they struck a fresh trail leading to and from their cabin,
they became mighty interested; and when they saw where they had made a
fire, and found half-burnt-up staves of a butter firkin, they got real
hot. When they got up to the cabin the door opened and the two fellows
came out; one of them, Missouri Bill, with a Winchester in his hands,
swearing he would shoot the first man who came a step further. This
stopped the boys for a bit; but Frank Morphet got a rope off a sleigh
and slipped round back of the cabin. The first thing Missouri Bill knew
he had a rope round his neck--and the game was up! Well, the boys didn't
want to hang them, so each of the fellows gave them a handful of beans,
or a little rice, and told them to get, thinking that mushing out five
hundred miles, and breaking trail all the way, was pretty nearly as bad
as hanging. They made the trip all right, but it was only because they
met some Siwashes."




CHAPTER XVII

DAWSON


Being in the vanguard of the multitude, whose rush to the diggings in
the following year was the outstanding feature of the history of the
Klondike, the Dawson that John Berwick and his companions found was that
of the winter of '97, very different from the city of five thousand
tents it was to become two months after their arrival!

An hour before midnight, when they arrived, Hugh had pointed out a high
hill, Dawson's Dome, placed beyond the mouth of the Klondike River, or,
as it was called before usage corrupted its name, the Thron Duik. Little
did he or his companions dream of the part this Dome was to play in the
events yet to be! The Dome was to become historic.

The main portion of Dawson was built on the north side of the Klondike.
It was a scene of much movement and business. Pack-trains were passing
up and down the streets, and innumerable dogs seemed everywhere.

Few boats had yet arrived, and a group of loafers gathered to watch them
land. One fellow shouted, "I'll give you a dollar apiece for any late
papers you have!"

Now that they were at the Klondike capital, the natural impulse of the
party was to enjoy whatever amusements were available; so, in spite of
their being tired, and the hour late, they drew the boat upon the gravel
shore. Passing between tents, they came to the mire of the main
thoroughfare. The atmosphere and circumstance of the goldfields were all
about them. There were pack-horses and pack-mules waiting before the
shops. Men were hurrying in and out with pack-straps on their backs.
Even the dogs wore saddle-bags--a good dog being able to pack forty
pounds of supplies. Other dogs passed drawing a cart, on which were
half-a-dozen cans, oil-tins filled with water, dispensed at twenty-five
cents the tin.

The festive side of life was more marked than the commercial. Men in
wild attire, women in gorgeous raiment, were ever passing in and out of
the saloons and gambling-halls. The four adventurers floundered across
the mud and entered the hospitable doors of the Borealis. This was a
saloon and dance-hall combined; but a roulette-wheel and faro lay-out
invited to play. It was the interval between the dances when they
entered, and a loud voice was calling: "Come along, gentlemen, pretty
ladies here!--just in over the ice. The next dance will be a waltz."

Frank Corte--ever the squire of dames--made a dive for the rear of the
hall, and was soon leading one of the gorgeous creatures into the dizzy
whirl. The partners from the last dance were crowding the bar, ordering
drinks. As each man paid his two dollars his "lady" was handed a check.
This check was redeemable for one dollar--the girls' source of revenue!

The orchestra was good, but the male section of the dancers was
certainly grotesque; many of the men, with sombreros on their head and
cigars between their teeth, were floundering through the dance in a
half-intoxicated condition, their great hob-nailed boots almost drowning
the music with their noise.

The three others soon left Frank to his diversions, and passed out to
the street. They saw a policeman, with whom, in the way of such a
free-and-easy community, they fell into talk.

"What's the chance of getting a claim?" they asked.

"Don't know. They are having stampedes right along, and any time you may
hear of good pay being located on a creek. When news like this gets out
there is a big rush by all classes, and you're lucky if you get
anywhere near discovery. If you want work, they are paying ten dollars
per day and board on the creeks for shovelling in--so I guess you need
not starve!"

Hugh, with his mind on the immediate necessities of the party, asked,
"Where is a good place to locate?"

"Up on the bench on the north side of the Klondike over there." The
policeman pointed south-east. "You can get wood handy, and the water is
good."

"What's the matter with pitching our tent where we landed?"

"Among the outfit along the water-front? No, they are the sore heads and
general kickers. You don't want to tie to them. Most of them have lived
in these tents all winter, and had nothing to do but dream of what some
other fellow has done them out of, and how much better things would be
if they had struck it rich instead of McDonald or Carmack! No, you
fellows pole up-stream to-morrow to the Klondike, and then up that
stream half a mile. Pack your grub to the top of the hill there, where
you can live like white men."

"That sounds reasonable, but we want to sleep now."

"Well, go to Flanagan's bunk-house up the street," and the man pointed
up a turning running at right angles to the main street. "He will give
you beds at a dollar each."

"Our boat and things will be all right? Good-night--and thanks."

When the three visited the boat next morning they found a man standing
on the bank, his legs--encased in rubber boots coming up to his
hips--far apart, hands in the pockets of his overalls, a sombrero on the
back of his head. Hugh noticed the smile of good-natured cynicism on his
face as he regarded the boat, and said,

"Queer, ain't it? And they say there are thousands more coming."

"Yes, fifty thousand more coming in--and me waiting for a chance to get
out!"

"I wonder what makes them do it?"

"Same thing as made me do it."

"Didn't you git a chance to stake anything?"

"Stake anything!--how long have you been in the country? Say! is that
your boat?"

"Yes."

"Well, take my tip and just get in it, and keep right on going till you
strike St. Michael's."

"For what reason would we do that?"

"Don't you know they have a Government in this country? Well, that's the
reason: officials and graft! Stake a claim, and they rob you of it! No,
sir, no more British mining-camps for me. I'm for the good old State of
Washington. If this camp was in Alaska a fellow could hold down what
was his with a shot-gun; but here you daren't make a break. Law and
order!--hell! Grafters appointed by the law, and the law to see no
fellow interfere with the grafters! We'd shoot the whole bunch if we had
them on the other side."

"We intend to stake claims, and we intend to hold them."

"You do, eh?--well, I bet you won't. You fellows should have brought
your nurse-girls with you to teach you the A B C."

The party was then joined by Frank, the habitual smile on his face; but
his eyes were heavy.

"Cost me fifty dollars!" he said.

"You got off easy--better get in and cook breakfast to wake you up. We
haven't eaten yet, and meals up town cost two dollars and a half!"

"Say! if you fellows want to you can use my tent and things, but I have
no grub to give away."

This invitation from the new-found pessimist was accepted, and Frank
went to work cooking while their host let loose his opinions upon life.

He told them how the manager of a great trading company had the autumn
before addressed the crowd, prophesying famine through the winter and
exhorting all to leave the place by the only avenue of escape--the
river, then filling with ice. It was a dismal picture enough, but
happily worse than the reality. He spoke well of the police, and praised
the way they had rushed the mail in and out with dog-teams. "And it
ain't their fault there is so much grafting; they don't graft
themselves."

He told of the fabulous wealth of Eldorado, Bonanza, and Hunker Creeks,
and of Alec McDonald, the "Big Moose," estimated to be worth
$26,000,000. He expatiated at length upon the irregularities of the Gold
Commissioner's office; the iniquitous Orders-in-Council from Ottawa,
such as the imposition of ten per cent. royalty on the production of the
creeks, and the reserving to the Crown of every alternate claim on
Dominion Creek, of all other creeks on which new discoveries might have
been made, and of the hillside claims.

Frank, with his Yankee predilections, was ready to believe anything bad
of Canada, and chuckled at the account. John and George, though they had
had experience of official corruption in Australia, thought the accounts
fantastic, and could not believe such things possible in British
dominions. "The Gold Commissioner is not in the graft; he's honest--but
he's like a baby, and the gang play with him as they like."

Breakfast over, the party set out, and in an hour had poled and tracked
the boat half a mile up the Klondike. They passed under a crude
suspension bridge and saw two ferries and innumerable boats plying
across the river.

Hugh noticed a break or "draw" in the cliff, marked by a trail that led
to the bench on which the party was to locate, and stopped the boat.

"Get out the axes, fellows; and, Frank, you pack the tent up the hill.
It will make you think of what you have done with your last winter's
wages. John, you're the honoured guest--you're going to boss the job."

Berwick, without any load, found the climb to the top of the hill
sufficiently exhausting, as he was not yet fully recovered. After Frank
had thrown down the tent Hugh unlashed it, and spread it in the sun,
folded one end to make a pillow, and told John to lie upon it. And then
he addressed his partners,

"Look here, fellows--one thing is certain. Whatever we do as regards
prospecting and taking up claims, we want a home-camp as a sort of
headquarters; and we might as well make it here and now. We need not
bother building a cabin, but we can put up a wall of logs the size of
the tent and put the tent on top. This will do till the fall, by which
time we will all be millionaires--except Frank here, unless he quits
dancing! Now we'll pack up the rest of the outfit. Come on, boys!"

By four o'clock their new habitation was completed: two beds were built
and the little stove erected inside the tent. Frank had an early supper
and went to bed. The others built a camp-fire outside to keep away the
flies, and discussed mining far into the night.




CHAPTER XVIII

POO-BAH!


During the days of his convalescence John Berwick spent many hours
roaming about the bluff, indulging his passion for the sights of Nature,
and thinking--quite without panic now--of the infinite problems
associated with human existence in an universe governed by an
inscrutable Providence. Much of his thought, too, naturally turned to
the girl he had left behind him. His illness and these after-thoughts
had taught him lessons, and given him hopes.

In the steep ascent, one day, of the bench on the south side of the
Klondike, John came up with a tottering figure bent under a heavy load.
The man was old, and the temptation came to John--invalid as he was--to
offer to relieve him of the burden for a bit; when the man sat down to
rest, and wiped away the perspiration with a much-soiled red
handkerchief. John sat down near him; but for a time he paid no
attention to him, or to any of the passers-by.

"It's a nice day," John began.

"It's only chechachoes that talk about the weather," was the blunt
reply.

"I'm a chechacho."

"Don't have to tell me that: what in hell are you fellows coming here
for?"

"To stake a claim and get rich."

"Poo-Bah will get it!"

"Poo-Bah--Poo-Bah of the _Mikado_?"

"This ain't the Mikie-do's Poo-Bah--this is the Octopus' Poo-Bah! He's
got the Mikie-do and the Czar of Russia skinned to death. Poo-Bah comes
pretty near running things in Dawson. If you stake a claim, and go to
Poo-Bah and give him half interest, you may get a grant for it--that is,
if Poo-Bah can't find any person to run it for him! Then, again, he may
think he wants it all himself--in which case you can go to hell! If you
wants to start manufacturing hootch, just go to Poo-Bah, and he will fix
things so as you won't be touched."

"But are you sure? This is British territory."

"British!--nothing: this is the Octopus' country; and him and Poo-Bah is
old friends! Fellows tell me Poo-Bah helped elect the Octopus back east
to Parliament--or whatever you Britishers call your Government lay-out.
Look at this royalty they are putting on our gold!--how much of this
here royalty ever gets to Queen Victoria? No, sir; I bet Sir Wilfrid
Laurier never gets his hands on one-half of what's robbed from us poor
devils."

"But the expenses of Government must be raised, and you must admit that
you have good law and order, and that you never get held up."

"Held up! Law and order! Hell! What's the difference between being held
up by fellows like the Soapy Smith gang, or being held up by the
blooming yellow-legs? You have some chance of getting clear of Soapy
Smith--and it's only a matter of time till some fellow takes a shot at
him; but you can't get past the yellow-legs: they won't stand for no
bluffs."

"The Government will build roads."

"Roads! Then why ain't they building them? No; the Government says
Poo-Bah will build them, and has given Poo-Bah a franchise to charge
fellows going up Bonanza Creek trail twenty-five cents apiece, and for
each pack-animal two dollars and a half. Poo-Bah started to build the
road all right; but he quit just as soon as he got the toll-gate up!
What do you think I'm climbing this two thousand feet for?--mountain
scenery, same as you're doing? No, it's a mighty sight easier to climb
this blooming hill than to wade through Poo-Bah's bog-holes. The Bonanza
trail makes 'the slough of despond' look like the rocky road to Dublin!
But say! I must be getting. You're away from the land of dooks and
earls, and kings and queens, and all that brand of cattle; and you'd
better turn white man with a new set of notions in your head."

"Let me carry your load a little way."

"Go on! I ain't dead yet! It serves me right for getting caught in a
country ruled by a Government my fathers bled to get rid of, about the
time of the Boston tea-party." The old man struggled into his harness
again. "God! I wished I was back again under Old Glory."

John shrank under the insult. Tears came to his eyes. What soul
cherishing the honour of British institutions would not have protested
at such a state of things as his eyes were daily being opened to?

Sadness came over him. Here was a great injustice, and sordid, festering
corruption, inspired by greed. He gritted his teeth--and a resolve came
to him. If he found these stories true he would strive, somehow, anyhow,
to overthrow Poo-Bah and his _clique_ of corruption.

After a while John again came up to the old man resting by the side of
the trail, who blurted out, "I thought I had given you enough to send
you out of the country!"

"Then you didn't. Tell me this, are you aware of any case of a miner
being cheated out of his claim?"

"Yes, lots. There's my own, for one."

"Where and how was that?"

The old man was not disinclined to talk.

"Well, stranger, it was this way. Me and my partner staked a claim on
French Hill, and we was sure first on the ground. We went to Dawson and
gave a lawyer a hundred dollars to apply for the claim for us. They told
him that we must have a survey before they would give the grant. Well,
we gave a surveyor two hundred dollars to survey the claim for us, and
we went out there with him. When we got there with the surveyor we found
a dozen fellows with rockers taking the rich pay off the rim rock. It
was three weeks before we got our grant. The Gold Commissioner's gang
took $30,000 out of it, and now we have the leavings, not worth much! If
we hadn't thought of getting the lawyer, we wouldn't have even got the
leavings!"

That was enough for John. He arose and pushed through the bushes on the
opposite side of the trail, walking in the general direction of the
hill-top. He desired solitude that he might think.

He felt fiercely angry at these wrongs. They were intolerable; they
struck at the simplest principles of human liberty. Here were men
enduring privations which sometimes caused permanent bodily harm--John
remembered the snow-blinded traveller of Cape Le Berge--only to have the
fruits of their strenuous endeavour mercilessly taken from them!

Before he could control his indignation he had wandered miles from
Dawson, and gained the summit of the hill, where he sat to eat his
luncheon.

To the eastward was the valley of the great gold-bearing creek, Bonanza.
He noted the great rounded ridges, which, with their intervening
valleys, ran along the slopes to its bottom. He marvelled at the
softness and beauty of their lines, each of which ended in a
gracefully-rounded head, standing sentinel over the creek. And well they
might appear to guard its riches, for those heads contained immense
deposits of bench gravels that were to cause extraordinary sensation in
the days to come.

Finishing his lunch, he was idly working at the moss with his heels when
he noticed that the rock beneath was white as milk. He examined it
closely; yes, it was quartz, the parent rock of gold.

Immediately the instinct of the miner was aroused. He took a piece of
loose rock and easily broke off several pieces. These he put into his
pockets, and set out eagerly for home. His mind was free of politics
now! A tinge of palest green was on the hills; this one day's sun had
burst a myriad of buds upon a million poplars. Yes, it was summer!

George and Hugh, coming in soon after John's return, were shown the
find, and all was enthusiasm.

"Pretty hungry-looking stuff," was Hugh's comment on close inspection.
"How will you get water up there for your stamp-mill?"

John found an answer, as he remembered the long, gently-reclining ridge
to Bonanza Creek with its flanking valleys on either side.

"I'll take my ore to Bonanza Creek."

"But they won't let you take the water out of Bonanza Creek."

"Perhaps not; but they will let me have the water out of the tributaries
if I can turn it back before it reaches Bonanza Creek."

On the morrow George and he visited the famous--or infamous--seat of the
Head over the mining industry. They found the Gold Commissioner's office
a log building of no great dimensions near the police-barracks. A
waiting crowd was lined before the door. A policeman standing near the
office entrance directed John, who wished merely to get a copy of the
regulations governing the taking up of quartz claims, to ask at the
wicket inside.

He entered. As he stood waiting his turn he overheard a miner, evidently
a Scandinavian, applying for a claim.

"This claim is already applied for," said the official.

"But, mister, there vos not a stake on it ven I staked it."

"I don't care! It is applied for. Next!"

"Can't I see the Commissioner?"

"No; he's busy. Next!"

"Say! mister, this is my claim."

"Next!"

Poor Ole was shoved aside by the crowd. He had waited through the weary
night to gain a hearing, and now ethereal castles came toppling down!

As soon as John had obtained a copy of the regulations he and George
Bruce set off to the hill of promise, each to take up a quartz claim.

They staked their claims, and then followed the ridge down to Bonanza
Creek. They found that the rounded end of the ridge overlooking the
creek was admirably suited as the site of a quartz mill.

"George," said his companion, "I don't think my right will be of any
other use to me. I shall take up a claim here under the placer laws, and
I think you had better do the same." So each of them staked a placer
claim.

Instead of returning by the way they had come, the inclination to return
by the creek trail was too strong to be resisted. They would be forced
to wade through numerous bog-holes; but what of that? Down the hill they
scrambled, and came to a sudden halt amid the full activity of some
mining operations. A gang of men were working over a line of
sluice-boxes, with a big fellow, standing on a pile of rocks,
superintending. The water was shut off from running through the sluices.
The men had lifted the riffles out of the dump-box, and the gleam of
nuggets and dust was plainly visible.

"It looks good."

"It ought to be, after three days' shovelling in on discovery," answered
the superintendent, who flashed a keen glance at the new-comers.

"Is this discovery?"

"That's what I endeavoured to enunciate."

"Do you object to our watching the clean-up?"

"Not that I knows of. I s'pose the gold ain't going to evaporate 'cause
you look at it. But where do you come from? Are you miners?"

"We are."

"Do you want a job? Give you ten dollars and board."

"No, we have just staked claims--quartz claims on the ridge up
there--and intend working them."

"Quartz! this country is full of quartz. There ain't nothing in it; see
all the quartz in the wash here?" and the foreman pointed to the white
pebbles among the rocks on which he was standing. "You can crack these
all day and never find a colour."

"Where does the gold come from if it does not come from the quartz?"

"Where does it come from?--just grows, I guess. Gold is like potatoes in
this country. It was over there, just under the bluff, that Carmack made
discovery. He found a bunch of high-grade pay in the creek bottom and
worked it out; and then he had to go twenty feet through the muck to
bed-rock before he got the real thing. Now, how did the gold get on top
of the muck where Carmack first found it? There has not been a
good-sized colour found above bed-rock on any other claim on the creek.
I tell you if you try to figure where gold in this country comes from,
you'll go bughouse before you find out. Gold is where you find it. It's
a blooming conundrum. Take me; I came up here and could have staked in
on Eldorado. Well, I couldn't find a colour in the creek; but what I
could see was a sign stuck up readin', 'This creek is reserved for
Swedes and Moose.' Now, I weren't a Swede, and I sure weren't a Moose!
So I passes her up. What happens? Why, a lot of fools take her up and
she's the richest ground in the country. Nice, ain't it!--and me working
for wages?"

"Well, how do you know I won't strike it rich on my quartz claim?"

"You may, stranger, you may; I've given up calling people fools for
having different notions from me. Hope you will!"

They found the trail as bad as it had been described to them. It did
indeed make the "slough of despond" look like the rocky road to Dublin.

Few men they met but had some humorous remark to make; and there is
probably no toil greater than wading, with pack on back, from stump to
stone, from stone to stump, in the course of that desperate journey.
Humour was the saving grace; it was an effective barrier against
despair. Occasionally men were met, blaspheming, cursing the land, the
gold, the Government, but generally it was humour which made the path
passable.

A led horse waded into a bog-hole. He stopped, and seemed to hesitate.
"Throw a stick at him," shouted the man leading him to another who
walked behind. A stick was thrown. The horse plunged, and the bog being
deeper than the men had imagined, was more in the mire. "Keep him going,
it's the only way to save him," was shouted. Stick after stick was
hurled at the struggling animal, which became more and more bemired. It
gave up the struggle. The report of a rifle soon after told that the
horse was dead.




CHAPTER XIX

GRAFT


John and his fellow prospector were working with hammer and drill on
their quartz claims, three weeks after they had staked them, when Hugh
Spencer and Corte paid them a first visit. Hugh scrutinized the quartz
his friends had mined.

"Well, this is poverty rock, for sure; why don't you quit it?"

"That's what we've been thinking lately," George confessed; "but what
shall we do--go to work for wages?"

"Better earn ten dollars a day than get nothing here after blowing in
your money buying grub and powder; but why not take a chance in the new
stampede to Australia Creek, that runs into Dominion Creek on the Indian
River side of the Divide? That's what we hunted you up for."

John and George gazed at one another. Not a word was said. John walked
to the tent and began taking it down. Four packs were made of the camp
and the equipment, and the party, well-loaded, returned to Dawson. So
John passed from a place of many dreams.

Hugh had already made his plans.

"Australia Creek is already taken up," he said, "and, besides, it is too
far away. It's two days' trip out there, about sixty miles. My idea is
to hunt up a creek for ourselves. I hear the grafters in the Gold
Commissioner's office already refuse applications on the grounds that
the creek is all applied for. There was some sort of a row in the office
when the discoverers came in to record. Things is getting pretty bad
when even a discoverer is refused a record!"

"He, he! it's about time for Uncle Sam to come along," chaffed Frank,
exploiting once more his set theory.

The party reached the home-camp, deposited their loads, and passed on
into the town to make purchases for their projected trip. As they passed
up the main street they saw a crowd collected, yelling itself hoarse.
Revolvers were being fired in the air, and a frenzy of passion seemed to
go

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