Jasper and the Riddle of Riley's Mine

by Caroline Starr Rose

  My middle warms, and it ain’t just from Mary Agnes’s robe. Someone knew I was in trouble and tried to help me.

  Mary Agnes goes on. “Not long after, a prospector from O’Neal Creek raced to Dawson in a sled. He said a boy had come to his cabin all alone and full of questions about Victoria Creek. It didn’t sit right with him.

  “By then the whole town was astir. I ran to the Mountie station. As Inspector Constantine set out to leave, I told him I knew two boys without a father, that if anything happened to them . . .” Mary Agnes clears her throat. “I persuaded him to let me come along on the chance the boy was you or Melvin. Because of the prospector, we knew to search Victoria Creek. Thanks to the smoke, we found you.”

  “That’s Inspector Constantine?” I watch the Mountie as he forces Frank into the sled, a regular fellow, same as anyone. “He’s the man in charge of the entire Klondike?”

  “That’s him,” she says.

  I can’t quite believe it. Inspector Constantine’s worked through the night, come all this way. For me. Who was the first fellow who went to the Mountie station? It had to be someone who was at Queen Creek with them Therouxs. Could it have been Stanley? It weren’t the mister, that’s for sure. He ain’t high on morals, but Stanley could be, if he got a chance to try some out.

  Maybe Mel and Spare-Rib heard the news that I’d been found and are waiting in Dawson City. “My brother, have you seen him?” I ask. My voice wobbles a little.

  Mary Agnes shakes her head.

  Inspector Constantine approaches. “Let’s get you settled in.” He scoops me up in his arms. It hurts so bad I got to hold my breath to keep from crying out. Him and Mary Agnes tuck me in the sled as gentle as they can. “What is this place?” he asks.

  “This is One-Eyed Riley’s mine,” I say.

  Frank wears an ugly scowl.

  The inspector blinks once. Twice. “Sounds like you’ve got a story to tell us between here and town.” He straightens out the dogs’ leads, and they yap and sing in their excitement. Then smooth as gliding down the backside of the Chilkoot on Melvin’s sled, we race across the snowbanks straight for Dawson City.

  The trees blur past and the wind whips the blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I tell my story, and it’s a good one. It starts with two boys who set out to find some gold. It’s got clues and creeks and the promise of a wealthy claim, some folks who weren’t decent and others who were right kind. It ends with the discovery that Riley was a sneak, his mine not worth a thing.

  Frank keeps silent till the very end. “Who’s the one who turned me in?”

  Inspector Constantine stands on the back of the sled. The ride’s real swift, but he holds himself steady, the lantern bobbing at his side. “A man I kicked out of Dawson a few months ago for stealing another man’s gold. I sent him away on the steamer Portland. Didn’t recognize him at first, as he’d shaved his mustache and his head. But I remembered him when he started talking. He confessed once he reached Seattle he left again to come back here with hardly anything but a few meager supplies.” Inspector Constantine’s dark eyes watch Frank carefully. “Seems he was anxious to get back to search for Riley’s mine. But you already know that. You and your friend will get a lot of time to catch up when you’re shipped out of town together.”

  Frank grumbles under his breath.

  Albert? He risked getting caught himself to turn Frank in?

  “I want you at the hospital as soon as we reach Dawson,” Mary Agnes says.

  “If Mel’s there, please, could I get a few minutes with him first?”

  Mary Agnes squeezes my hand. “I’ll allow that.”

  The sled wheels to the right, and up ahead I spy a couple buildings, their lights blazing inside and out. Soon we’re on a street lined with tents and stores, cabins and saloons. I reckon every lantern in Dawson City’s been lit tonight. The Midnight Dome keeps silent watch on the far end of the road.

  A crowd welcomes us as the sled slows. The other Marys are in front, but even closer are Mel and Spare-Rib, who rush to meet us before the sled even stops. Mel stumbles as he reaches for me, but rights himself quick. He don’t let go until he lifts me in the air.

  My brother, who’s nearly a man, he’s got tears on his cheeks. “You’re safe.”

  “You’re better.” Our words run together.

  Spare-Rib pats my arm. “You had us worried.”

  Mel starts to set me down.

  “Be careful with him,” Mary Agnes says. “He’s been injured.”

  Mel’s eyes fill up again. I ain’t ever seen him like this before.

  “I’m gonna be okay,” I tell him. Soon enough Mel will know everything. I don’t want to worry him no more, if I can help it.

  Mel gently helps me stand on my good leg. I rely on the sled to keep me steady. I study Mel, his ugly bruise, his weary face, them shoulders that have got so strong since we left Pa. He’s worth more than a thousand gold-filled mines.

  Inspector Constantine forces Frank to stand.

  “Give him a blue ticket straight out of town!” a fellow shouts.

  “Don’t you worry,” Inspector Constantine says. “This man will get his due. It’s the boy over there you should concern yourselves with.”

  Everybody turns to me, their eyes curious. What does the inspector mean?

  “He’s got quite a story to share. But first, someone fetch him a hot drink.”

  A fellow hands me a scalding cup of coffee, which burns my tongue but tastes real fine.

  “Go on, Jasper,” Mary Agnes whispers once I’m finished. Mel and Spare-Rib look real curious.

  I clear my throat and nod to the inspector. “Some of you knew Riley.”

  A couple fellows nod and murmur.

  “And some of you just heard about his riches.” I lick my cracked lips. Everyone waits like I hold the answers to all their questions, which I do. “Well, I’ve been to his mine.”

  “You found—” Melvin starts to say, but Spare-Rib shushes him.

  “And I can tell you there ain’t nothing there.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?” a man says. “Did another fellow beat you to the gold?”

  “Nope.” My eyes are glued on Frank. His grimace ain’t changed since we learned about Riley’s trick, but I ain’t scared of him no more. “It was all just a prank, one cooked up by Riley.”

  “How do we know that’s true?” another fellow asks.

  “I’ll let Riley tell you himself.” I take that letter from my pocket and read it in the lantern light. Spare-Rib shakes his head, like he ain’t a bit surprised. But Melvin’s face is drawn. It’s so quiet once I finish, I hear the latch on the Mountie station door as Inspector Constantine leads Frank inside.

  Then someone laughs, but not with merriment. His long gray beard fairly quivers. “Of course,” he says.

  It’s Bill. The old-timer from Bonanza Creek.

  “Of course it was a prank. That fool Riley. That ridiculous old fool.”

  The crowd begins to move along, abuzz with all that’s happened.

  “I’m sorry, Jasper,” Melvin says. “You wanted Riley’s mine so badly. And now you’re hurt and—”

  “We’re gonna be fine,” I tell him. Of anyone, Mel best understands why I chased so hard after Riley’s claim. Even though I ain’t sure what’s to come, my brother will be with me. We’ve done pretty well so far.

  Mel nudges my shoulder. “Look who got three months on the woodpile.” He points to the Mountie station.

  A Mountie stands guard as two men swing axes above their heads without a lick of skill. It’s them Therouxs. They can’t seem to split the wood scattered at their feet no matter how they try.

  “Careful,” Mr. Theroux shouts. “You ’bout sliced through my kneecap.”

  “Then move aside,” Stanley says.

  “All this wo
rk, it stirs up my rheumatism.” Mr. Theroux sets down his ax. “I best rest a spell.”

  “No you won’t.” The Mountie hands him the ax again. “You’ll rest when I tell you to.”

  It’s just how them Therouxs acted in the saw pit during our Lindeman City days, except the Mountie won’t take none of their lip.

  “They didn’t only sell fake Riley clues,” Mel says.

  “They were the thieves me and Edwin tried to track,” Spare-Rib continues. “Before they set up that hoax of theirs on Queen Creek, they lifted gold from nearby camps.”

  “You know what else?” Mel brushes his hair off of his bruised forehead. “Their thieving didn’t start in Dawson. Stanley confessed he saw his uncle take the gold stolen at Lake Lindeman.”

  “Old Joe’s gold. Mr. Theroux stole it while we lived with them?” We sailed for a week with that crook and had no idea at all.

  Spare-Rib shakes his head. “The woodpile’s too good for them, if you ask me.”

  I lean heavy into Mel. “Are you okay?” he asks.

  I shake my head. Even though I only got my weight on one leg, the pain’s still bad.

  Mary Agnes turns from the Sisters. “It’s time for the hospital, Jasper, and you won’t tell me otherwise.”

  “The hospital?” Mel’s eyes grow wide.

  “Melvin, help me with your brother,” Spare-Rib says. They lift me in the sled and tuck the blanket gently beneath my legs.

  Mary Agnes rides up front, and Spare-Rib’s in the back. Me and Mel are in the middle. He wraps his arm around me. “I thought I’d lost you,” he says.

  “You can’t get rid of me that easy.” I shove his shoulder playfully. “I made you a promise I’d stick with you. For always. It’s as simple as that.”

  The dogs lean forward in their harnesses, eager to begin their journey.

  Epilogue

  I swirl the laundry water ’round and ’round, so fast some swishes over the pail’s rim. Though the light in the cabin is weaker than Spare-Rib’s spruce needle tea, there ain’t no way I miss the glimmer everyone north of Skagway hopes for. Along with the sludge collected in the bottom of the pail are streaks of gold more beautiful than anything, just like Spare-Rib said there’d be.

  “Now pour off most of the water into this tub,” he says, “and swish what’s left around again.”

  I try to hold the bucket firm, but water splashes across the floor. I don’t know how to pan so good as Melvin does. He’s learned a whole lot from Spare-Rib in the month we’ve stayed with him. Spare-Rib took us in once I left the hospital and says we can stay until the sun returns next spring. After that, me and Mel ain’t sure what will happen next, but we don’t gotta have that figured out just yet. We can just take each day as it comes.

  “Gold’s heavier than dirt,” Mel says, “so it doesn’t matter if you spill. The gold will settle on the bottom.”

  “Let me show you, Jasper.” Spare-Rib lifts the pail with one hand and snaps his wrist. I move in closer, and Spare-Rib holds me steady. That night out on Victoria left me hurting for a while. I ain’t too strong on my feet just yet, but it will come. That’s what Spare-Rib says, and I believe him.

  “Did you see it?” Spare-Rib asks.

  I nod. As long as he keeps the water moving, a flicker of sparkling gold streaks around the bottom like a comet’s tail.

  This gold is mine to keep, rinsed from the folds and pockets of Little Skookum’s miners, a payment on top of what I charge for laundry, earned fair and square. Fellows here ain’t too clear on what it means to keep clean. They think they’re set if they change their underdrawers every two weeks. Some would rather toss a dirty shirt than have it laundered.

  I guess you could say I’ve got my work cut out for me, but I’m right fine with that.

  Last night I wrote a letter I’ve thought about for weeks, since I spent those days resting in the hospital in town.

  Dear Pa, it said:

  Don’t worry none. Me and Mel are happy here.

  Then I wrapped it around the pocket watch. Come spring, once the Yukon’s flowing, I’ll send it back to Washington.

  Because that watch is his, a wedding gift from Mama.

  He deserves a chance at happiness, same as anyone.

  Author’s Note

  On August 17, 1896, George Carmack and Skookum Jim found a thumb-sized nugget of gold while panning in Rabbit Creek, a southern tributary of Canada’s Klondike River. Word of their discovery quickly spread, and within two weeks of staking their claim, the Rabbit was renamed Bonanza (Spanish for “source of wealth” or “stroke of luck”) and the entire creek was staked.

  The Klondike gold rush, one of the world’s largest, was well under way.

  Most men who staked a Bonanza claim were from two neighboring mining towns along the Yukon River: Alaska’s Circle City and Canada’s Fortymile. The mining town of Dawson City, which sprang up in the swampland where the Yukon and Klondike Rivers intersect, was about twenty miles northwest of Bonanza’s discovery claim.

  It wasn’t until a year later that the rest of the world learned of the discovery. On July 15, 1897, a steamship named Excelsior pulled into San Francisco, full of weary, run-down prospectors with suitcases, jam jars, and sacks that overflowed with gold. Two days later, when the Portland arrived in Seattle, the city was prepared. Journalists rowed out to the Portland to get the story before the steamer even docked. The first copy of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was available by the same time those on board were able to disembark. The newspaper’s headline read as follows:

  GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!

  SIXTY-EIGHT RICH MEN ON

  THE STEAMER PORTLAND.

  STACKS OF YELLOW METAL!

  For five years, the United States had been in the grip of an economic depression. The hope of easy riches in a land not too far off but distant enough to promise adventure appealed to many. Like San Francisco, the city of Seattle caught gold fever. Businessmen left their jobs immediately. People emptied their bank accounts and told their families to expect them back with riches in a few years. Even the mayor of Seattle quit his job to start a company connected with the goldfields.

  Information—and misinformation—rapidly spread: Gold grew on bushes and was so plentiful, it could be scooped from the ground. A bicycle could easily carry a man the two thousand miles between the Pacific Northwest and the Klondike. Even newly minted guidebooks contained questionable information. Bona fide Klondike outfitters sprang up overnight in large cities along the United States’ and Canada’s west coasts, selling clothes, dehydrated food, and mining gear. People were encouraged to take with them a ton of goods, called an outfit, which consisted of a year’s supply of food, tools, and clothing.

  The enthusiasm, stories of incredible wealth, and rapid ability to relay information through newspapers led to the frenzy known as Klondicitis. Those who left for the Klondike became known as Stampeders, for it was a huge number that rushed across the continent from not only North America but around the world. All sorts of people came, from those down on their luck to those well established in their fields. Barons and princes, farmers and doctors, and prospectors from goldfields in Nevada, South Dakota, Colorado, and other corners of the world joined with prospectors from California’s gold rush days in the race to the Klondike. And although not so many in number, women and children came, too.

  Most heading to Canada traveled to the saltwater ports closest to the Klondike, the Alaskan towns of Dyea and Skagway. The two communities, less than ten miles apart, were almost nonexistent only months before. Those who passed through Skagway faced Jefferson “Soapy” Smith and his gang, who’d come to Alaska with the plan to swindle Stampeders. The con men posed as prospectors, barbers, and outfit packers. Even the local authorities were under Soapy’s power. From Skagway, the Stampeders entered Canada on the White Pass Trail, roughly thirty-seven miles of switchbacks (t
rails with winding turns) that ran between swamps, boulders, and hills. Thousands of packhorses were worked to death on the White Pass Trail because of its harsh terrain and the Stampeders’ unrelenting drive. It was so awful, Stampeders nicknamed White Pass the Dead Horse Trail.

  Those who docked in Dyea traveled into Canada on the shorter but steeper Chilkoot Trail, which ran about twenty-six miles and included a 3,500-foot climb. It took the average man forty trips up and down the steep mountain to get his goods across. Unlike Skagway’s White Pass Trail, which was sometimes closed because of heavy rain, the Chilkoot was open year-round. Once it was covered in snow, Stampeders carved footholds into the mountain’s side. Stampeders swarmed these Golden Stairs day and night, hauling their gear.

  The two trails joined at Canada’s Lake Bennett, where Stampeders built boats to sail the last six hundred miles down the Yukon and into Dawson City.

  Like Jasper and Melvin, only a few people who left in August made it to Dawson City by the fall of 1897. They had all traveled light, ignoring the advice to bring their ton of goods. By February 1898 Canada’s North West Mounted Police began collecting taxes at the Chilkoot and White Pass summits on goods brought into the country. A ton of goods for every Stampeder was no longer a recommendation but a requirement enforced to protect Stampeders from starvation. The Mounties turned back all who tried to enter Canada without it.

  During the winter of 1897–1898, twenty-two thousand Stampeders traveled through the Chilkoot Pass alone. By the time the majority of people who’d left the West Coast in July and August had made it over the passes, it was already October. Winter was well under way. Prospectors were forced to wait out the winter until the spring thaw along the banks of Lakes Lindeman and Bennett.

  The California gold rush, which started in 1848, was known for its lawlessness, but the Mounties in the Klondike kept firm control. Those who broke the law were either given a blue ticket, which forced criminals to leave the territory, or made to do heavy labor on the Mountie woodpile.

  Those seeking gold weren’t the only ones affected by the gold rush. With the arrival of the Stampeders, indigenous peoples such as the Tagish, the Tutchone, the Tlingit, and the Hän-speaking people who lived close to the area around Dawson created new economic opportunities for themselves. They worked as packers, guides, or hunters. Women contributed to their family’s income by making and selling clothes to Stampeders ill-prepared for Yukon winters. The rapid influx of people who came during the winter of 1897–1898 hastened the spread of disease and the decimation of indigenous homelands and hunting grounds, and disrupted ways of life.