CHAPTER X
THE ROARING NORTH
"I was young an' tough in them days an' liked to buck agin hard goin'.If gold was gettin' scarce where folks was, it was plenty an' free inthe lands that folks didn't dare go to. Naturally enough, I begun tothink o' the Chilkoot country.
"Ever since Georgie Holt had been tortured to death in a ChilkootIndian camp, prospectors had been leery o' that huntin' ground. ButFrench Pete had heard from a pard o' Juneau's that Dumb MacMillan hadgot over the Chilkoot an' struck it rich on what he called Dumb Creek,runnin' into the Tanana. He'd come back an' cashed his dust, blowed itin on one wild spree, an' gone over the Pass again. He hadn't neverbeen heard of no more.
"Since his second trip, though, the Canadian Government had got astrangle-hold on the Chilkoots an' was makin' 'em behave. It hadforced 'em to make peace wi' the Stick Indians o' the interior, an'thrown the fear o' the whites into 'em good an' plenty. So I wasn'tworryin' over Injuns none. The Chilkoot Pass, though, was said to besomething awful to cross, but that wasn't goin' to stop me, when Iknew there was good goin' on the other side an' all the creeks full o'gold.
"So I quit Treadwell an' French Pete an' got back to Juneau. There, Iheard that a bunch o' prospectors led by the Schiefflin Brothers hadtaken a steamboat, got as far as St. Michael, gone up the Yukon,wintered at Nuklukayet an' found gold all the way. They'd struck goodplacers on Mynook, Hess an' Shevlin Creeks, but the Schiefflins foundthe ground always frozen an' terrible hard to work, an' the summer wasso short they figured pannin' on the Yukon wouldn't pay.
"Think o' that, will you! The Klondyke an' the Eldorado wouldn't pay!
"That same summer, we heard that there was new gold strikes on theLewes an' Big Salmon Rivers, which run into the Upper Yukon. DumbMacMillan had found payin' color on the Tanana, flowin' into theMiddle Yukon. The Schiefflins had located plenty o' placers on theLower Yukon.
"It didn't take much figurin' to guess that there was gold all theway along. I made up my mind to strike over the Chilkoot into theStewart River section, jest about unknown then; preparin', durin' thewinter, for an early start.
"Early in the spring o' '84, eight of us was ready. We had asure-enough outfit an' plenty o' grub. We was well fixed forshootin'-irons, too, for we was goin' up into hostile Injun country.
"Joe Juneau, who knew a lot about the mountains, tried to head us off,tellin' what happened to Holt an' MacMillan, but we was sot on goin',an' struck out for Dyea along the canal trail. There we headed for theinterior.
"I've seen some rough goin' in my time, an' I come of a stock o' toughuns, but, I'm tellin' you, that first trip over the Chilkoot Pass wasmore'n horrible. I dream about it, yet--an' it's over thirty yearsago!
"From Dyea to Sheep Camp was bad enough goin', half-frozen muskeg(mucky swamp), lyin' under soft snow an' all covered with a tangle o'thorn-vines climbin' over spraggly berry-bushes. There warn't notrail. It was cut your way, an' drag! We didn't have no dogs, butlugged the sleighs ourselves. It's only nine miles as the crow flies,but it took us four days to make it, with our loads.
"An' then the Chilkoot Pass stuck up in front of us, all black rockan' white snow, reachin' to the sky, an' clouds hidin' the top. Itseemed like it was a-defyin' of us, well-nigh impossible.
"We'd ha' gone back, sure, but we knew two men had climbed it a'ready,Georgie Holt in '72, and Dumb MacMillan, in '80. What they'd done, wereckoned we could do.
"Sheer rock, she was, all slick an' icy, to begin with; above that,stretches o' snow-fields on so steep a slope that a false step meant asnow-slide an' good-bye! crevasses in the snow goin' down below allknowin', an' mostly covered over wi' light snow so's you couldn't see'em; an', near the top, a pile o' loose an' shaky rocks built up likea wall, straight as the side of a house, an', in some spots, leanin'over. That was the Chilkoot Pass!
"The cold was cruel; a steady wind, nigh to a blizzard, sucked throughthe Pass continooal, tearin' a man from his footin.' There was noshelter, an' high up, no fire-wood.
"There was no trail, neither! We had to go it, blind. An', up thatrock, over them snow-fields, across them crevasses, an', fly-like,crawling up that wall o' bowlders, we had to drag our dunnage! Thesleighs had to be pulled up, empty. Our sacks o' flour had to be totedon our backs! An' our bacon an' groceries, enough to last us months!An' our tools an' cradles! I made five trips to get my stuffacross--an it took me five weeks. Between whiles, I rested, if lyin'exhausted means rest!
"There was eight of us that started. There was only three when thestuff was on the summit o' the pass! Two had been crushed by fallin'rocks. The other three had all disappeared sudden in a crevasse, whatthey thought was solid snow givin' down under 'em. Only Red Bill, BullEvans an' me was left.
"Mind, there was no trail an' no guide! Holt had been over yearsbefore, but the Indians killed him. Dumb MacMillan went over it twice,an' never was heard of no more. Me an' my pardners was the third, an',as I was sayin', o' the eight that started, only three got to thetop."
"Yet how many thousands climbed that Pass after gold had been struckon the Klondyke?" queried Owens.
THE TOP OF THE CHILKOOT PASS.
The neck to the Klondyke as it appeared in April, 1898, during theheight of the stampede.
_From "The Romance of Modern Mining," by A. Williams._
_Copyright, 1898, by S. A. Hegg._]
PASS IN THE SIERRA NEVADAS OF CALIFORNIA.]
"Thirty thousand an' more, so folks said. Two thousand o' them,though, died in tryin'. An' they had Injun an' half-breed porters totote their dunnage, too! The trail was marked for them. In the lastyears o' the big rush, there was an aerial tramway to take up thestuff. It wasn't like that in my day. We tackled it on our own.
"When we reached the top, the trouble wasn't over neither. 'Totherside was rough an' dangerous, all loose rock an' mighty little snow.We loaded the sleighs an' let 'em down by jerks, all three men hangin'on to the drag-ropes. But we made the bottom, safe, an' started offagain. No trail, no map, no nothin'! We jest pushed on, blind, threewhite men in a country o' hostile Injuns huntin' for a river which wedidn't even know where it was.
"Followin' a small creek an' pannin' now an' agin--though not findin'any color--we came at last to Crater Lake an' then on to Lindeman, an'final, to Lake Bennett. Here, we'd heard before leavin', the YukonRiver begun, an' we started to go round the lake, so's to strike thebank o' the river.
"It couldn't be done. Muskeg an' thick forest run clear down to theshore o' the lake, an' a b'ar couldn't ha' pushed his way through.Small creeks shot out every which way. Sleighs were worse'n useless.
"There warn't nothin' to be done but build a boat, an' nary one o' thethree of us knew the fust durn thing about boat-buildin'. But we puttogether a kind of a log-raft, that floated, anyway, put the dunnageaboard it, an' drifted down the lake. This was easy goin', for awhile.
"All of a sudden, a swift current took us, the lake narrowed into ariver, an', afore we had a chance to pole our heavy an' clumsy raft tothe bank, we was shootin' wi' sickenin' speed down white water. It wasGrand Canyon Rapids, a mile long! Half-way through, the raft struck arock an' went to bits, the logs bustin' free. I grabbed one an' wentspinnin' down the rapids. I must ha' hit my head on a snag, for Idon't remember no more till I woke up to find myself on the bank, an'Bull Evans leanin' over me.
"'What's the worst, Bull?' I asks, as soon as I realizes.
"'Red Bill's gone,' he says, 'an' so's most o' the grub. The dunnageis scattered anywheres along a mile or two. We hoofs it from here. Nomore rafts in mine!'
"An' a good thing we did hoof it, too. If we'd got through the GrandCanyon Rapids an' struck, unknowin', the White Horse Rapids--what theyafterwards called the 'Miners' Grave'--nary a one o' the three of uswould ha' come out alive.
"As it was, bein' afoot, we broke away from what afterwards was theKlondyke Trail, an', instead of striking across Lake Labarge, kep'between it an' Lake Kluane, strikin' some creeks leadin' into theWhite River. There, at last, after
three months on the trail, wepanned an' found color. We trailed on, pannin' as we went, cleanin' uppretty fair, an' final, struck some placers on the Stewart River. TheInjuns was peaceful an' we could get grub from a half-breed tradin'store near old Fort Selkirk. We wintered there."
"That was in '85?" Owens queried.
"Winter o' '85 an' spring o' '86."
"Then you must have been right on hand for the great strike onForty-Mile?"
"We sure was."
"But, man, you should have made a fortune, there!"
"I did!" came Jim's laconic answer.
"Well?"
"I made a hundred thousand dollars in three months."
"What happened to it, then?"
"That," said the old prospector, leaning back, and looking at his twohearers, "is a wild an' woolly yarn! Do you want to hear it, or do Igo on to the findin' o' that ore you've got in your hand?"
"Oh, tell the yarn, Jim!" pleaded Clem, who was less interested inJim's strike than was the mine-owner. Owens nodded assent.
"Pannin' gold," Jim began, "is pretty much the same all over. Oneminin' camp is a good deal like another, though Forty-Mile was thecleanest an' straightest camp I ever struck. I could spin a good manyyarns o' Forty-Mile an' near-by camps, but I'll leave 'em to anothertime an' tell you how it was I got poor, again, all in a hurry.
"With a bunch o' buckskin bags holdin' a hundred thousand dollars inthe coarse nuggety gold o' Forty-Mile, I was good an' ready to takethe back trail. I thought maybe I'd get back again next spring, forI'd become a sure-enough 'sour-dough' (old-timer of the northerngold-fields, so-called from camp bread). But I wanted to eat heavyan' lie soft for a while. I'd spend one winter in 'Frisco, any way,an' have a run for my money.
"The more I thought of it, the less I liked the notion o' goin' backover the Chilkoot Pass. Savin' for the first climb, the out trail wasworse'n the in. All the rapids'd have to be portaged.
"What was more, the news o' the Forty-Mile strike had reached theoutside, an' the human buzzards was a-flockin' in. The Canadianauthorities held the camps in a tight grip, but the trail was aNo-Man's-Land. A sour-dough comin' out from a strike stood a goodchance o' bein' plugged for his gold an' no one the wiser.
"A few weeks after the Forty-Mile strike, a rich placer had beenlocated at Circle, a hundred miles lower down on the Yukon an' acrossthe Alaskan Boundary jest above where Circle City is now. Nothin' waseasier'n to buy a small row-boat an' float down the Yukon to Circle.The rapids wasn't worth speakin' about. At Circle we'd take the rivercraft runnin' to Fort Yukon, an' then ship on board the steamer forSt. Michael, Skagway an' 'Frisco.
"No weary miles o' hoofin' it on the trail, no portages, no work, jestsit in a boat an' take it easy! That hundred thousand made me feel toolazy to move.
"We got the boat, bein' willin' to pay whatever fancy price was asked.While she was still tied up at Forty-Mile, one o' the North WestMounted Police come up an' asked us where we was headin'. We told him.He wanted to know how many were goin'. There was my pardner, BullEvans, me, an' four more. He shakes his head.
"'That's about twenty too few,' says he. 'Are you takin' the dustalong?'
"'Right with us, Johnny,' says we.
"'You've got more gold'n you have sense,' he comes back, cheerfully.'Better wait a month or so. We're goin' to convoy a party through theWhite Pass to Skagway, takin' the express an' the bank gold, an' youcan come along, safe.'
"'It's too long a trail for millionaires,' says we.
"'A dead millionaire ain't worth much,' he says. 'You'll have yourbones picked clean by the crows if you get across the border thata-way. Alaska ain't the Dominion, not by a long shot.'
"That hit us wrong. We thought he was jest bluffin', tryin' to makeout that Canada was the only country that could run things right. Mostof us was from the U. S., an' we grouched at his pokin' in.
"'Law an' order's as good 'tother side o' the line as it is here!'says Bull.
"'Have it your own way! I'll send the patrol boat with you as far asthe border. I can't do no more.'
"We didn't want the patrol, but he sent it, any way, an' we startedout.
"'Last chance!' he yells, when the border's reached, 'better comeback!'
"'We ain't quitters!' Bull shouts back, an' on we go, six of us, an'close on to half a million dollars in dust among the lot. Every manhad a rifle, a six-shooter, an' plenty o' ammunition. All wasold-timers an' quick on the shoot. We reckoned we could take care ofourselves, good an' plenty. Any way, we weren't goin' to landanywheres until we struck Circle, so there wouldn't be no danger.
"We hadn't got more'n ten miles the other side o' the line, jestbeyond the little minin' camp of Eagle, when of a sudden:
"'Spat!'
"A bullet strikes the boat, right at the water line, an' she begins toleak.
"It was pretty shootin', an' every man reaches for his gun. There's acurl o' smoke driftin' up from a pile o' rock, but no one shoots,knowin' well the marksman's under cover. We trims the boat, to keepthe hole out o' water, and then:
"'Spat! Spat!'
"One on each side. We stuffs some bits o' rag in the holes, but theboat begins to fill. One side o' the river's sheer rock, an' thereain't no landin' there. Cussin' free, an' every man wi' his rifleready, we beaches the boat on the other shore an' gets out, ready forthe scrap.
"Then some one starts to talk, over our heads, hidden in the rocks:
"'Gents, I'm sure sorry to stop your trip! There's twenty of us, an'each has his man covered. It ain't no use for you to make trouble.Them as is reasonable can leave their bags o' dust an' their pop-gunson the beach, an' walk off fifty paces to the left. Them as wants toshow their shootin' can wait jest two minutes by the watch, an' thefun'll begin, us havin' the pick o' the shots an' bein' under cover.The cards is stacked agin you, gents, an' there ain't no use toplay.'
"We all shoots back, o' course, more to relieve our feelin's'nanything else, for we knows this new-style road-agent has dodged backto cover.
"Me an' four others, we don't hesitate. We lays our bags o' dust an'our guns on the beach an' toddles off, as directed. Then I looks backan' sees Bull standin' there, alone.
"He's a durn fool an' I knows it. But he's my pardner, is Bull!
"I goes back an' tries to persuade him to eat crow. But Bull'sstubborn as a mule an' don't budge. I ain't a-goin' to leave him. Sowe both stands there.
"The road-agent has been takin' this in, an' presently he pipes up:
"'Very pretty, gents. Pardners is pardners and that's doin' ithandsome. Put up your hands an' we won't shoot.'
"For answer, Bull snaps his rifle to his shoulder an' fires.
"A volley rings out, an' Bull drops dead, a dozen bullets through him.I wasn't two yards away, but not a shot touched me.
"Then this road-agent, a tall thin galoot, heavily masked, comes downto where I'm standin' alone.
"'It was a dirty bit o' shootin'!' says I, indignant.
"'You've no cause to complain,' says he, 'nothin' hit you! I like yourspunk in standin' by your pardner. He seems to ha' been a he-man, too,even if he was a fool. Had he any folks?'
"'A baby girl back in Montana,' I tells him.
"'I'm not robbin' babies,' he says to that. 'She gets my share o' theloot. I give my word. Do you know the address?'
"I reaches down into Bull's coat, takes a letter from it what he'dwritten to his sister, what was lookin' after the kid, an' hands thisbandit the envelope. He reads it, nods an' puts it in his pocket."
"Did he ever send the money?" suddenly interrupted Owens.
"He did. I heard, years after, that the sister received thirtythousand dollars in cash, in a registered letter, sent from Skagway,an' in the envelope a slip o' paper 'From the Chief o' Circle.'"
"What happened next, Jim?" queried Clem, excitedly.
"What, after I'd given the galoot the envelope? He makes a sign an'half a dozen o' his gang comes down out o' the rocks where they'vebeen hidin'. They gather up the guns an' the bag
s o' dust lyin' on thebeach, while some more o' them goes over an' searches the other fourmen.
"'What's the next turn?' I asks the chief.
"'I don't do things in a small way,' he says. 'Your nerve's good. Forbein' willin' to stand by your pardner, when the rest run likerabbits. I'll leave you five thousand in dust, an' see you get back tothe border. Unless you want to join our band?'
"'I don't!' I answers, snappy like.
"But he was as good as his word. He weighs out an' hands over thedust, an' two of the gang takes me back to the line. There they givesme back my shootin'-irons, though, o' course without any ammunition.Next day I'm back in Forty-Mile."
"And the other four men?" queried Owens.
"Two joined the gang, an' later, started to get funny on the Canadianside. A Vigilance committee strung 'em up. The other two turned up atCircle City and I never heard no more about 'em.
"I staked out another claim--though there wasn't much to choose from,then--an' begins to pan again. But the luck had turned, an' I didn'tstrike nothin' rich.
"I stayed at Forty-Mile that winter, buildin' fires at night on thefrozen dirt to thaw it, an', next day, shovelin' an' haulin' it up tothe top o' my little shaft on the windlass I'd made myself. The pileo' pay dirt had to be left till the spring thaws for cleanin' up.
"Ten years I stayed inside, goin' from one placer on the Yukon toanother, makin' a livin', an' that's about all. Now an' again, when Igets a bit ahead, I sends a bag o' dust to Bull's little gal.
"In '98, I joins the rush to Nome, an' there's a roarin' wild town!But luck ain't runnin' my way. Like the rest, I starts to wash thesand o' the sea-beach, the last place a prospector'd ever look. Iclean up thirty a day, maybe, jest enough to keep goin'. I'm noricher'n no poorer'n I was ten years afore, but I got Bull's littlegal to work for, an' that keeps me pluggin'.
"Then, sudden, I gets a letter from the gal, enclosin' a note she'sreceived. It's short:
"'Rich pay gravel here.' It's signed with a circle, an' a cross. Onthe back, there's a map.
"I figures this is the Road-Agent o' Circle, an' he's dyin' an' wantsto make restitootion. It's my dooty to Bull's little gal to go an'find the place. I've jest about money enough to go there, an' the layis right. There's a bank of pay gravel more'n two miles long, an' ahundred feet deep, maybe more. It's frozen, summer'n' winter, an' toohard for thawin' with wood fires."
Jim halted for emphasis and looked keenly at the mine-owner.
"I was thawin' it out wi' coal, when I was there," he said, slowly,"soft, smudgy coal, brown an' sticky-like."
"What!" cried Owens in amazement. "Lignite coal?"
"Not a mile away from the gravel."
"But why, man--?" Owens stopped.
"A bunch o' Russian seal-poachers come up an' chased me off, sayin' itwas Russian territory. I believed 'em, at first. I didn't say nothin'about the gold, but made believe I was huntin' coal. But that lignite,as you call it, was so sure low-grade that they jest laughed at me.
"It ain't in Russian territory. It's in the United States, I've foundout that much. But minin' men don't take much stock in what I tell'em, an' coal men say it's too long a haul. But a man wi' money whatknows coal an' knows gold, an' could do some steam thawin' an'hydraulickin' would make good."
Owens looked at him thoughtfully.
"It's a wild and woolly yarn, all right," he said, "and it sounds likea story from a book, with the hold-up, and the girl and the idea ofrestitution, and the treasure-map and all the rest of it. You haven'tany proof?"
"Nothin' but what I've told you--an' the map. My pardner's got to takemy say-so."
"You say you wrote frequently to Bull Evans' daughter?"
"Once a season--sometimes twice. Whenever I could get some moneythrough."
"She will have kept those letters, certainly," the mine-owner mused,"and the payments through the Express Company will be easy to trace.Where does the girl live?"
"In Pittsburgh, now, with her aunt."
"If I guarantee to advance two hundred thousand, when satisfied thatyour story is straight, will you produce the map and come along,yourself?"
Jim looked him over.
"I'll trust you more'n you're willin' to trust me," he said, and tooka thin slip of paper from the buckskin tube out of which he had shakenthe gold dust the day before. "Here's the map. It's an island duenorth o' the Diomede Islands in the Behring Sea. The Eskimos call itChuklook. There's quartz gold on Ingalook, too. But mind, one-third o'what you pay for the claim belongs to Bull's little gal."
"Agreed!" declared Owens. "You trust me an' I'll trust you. Theletters an' the express records, being as you say, I'll go in."
"Clem bein' a pardner!" Jim insisted.
"Clem being a partner, sure!"
Boy With the U.S. Miners Page 11
