THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS.
The next night we reached that part of the river where Circle City
was put down on the map we carried, but not finding it, camped on a
gravelly beach beneath a timbered bluff. When we went up the bluff to
get wood for our fire the mosquitoes fairly drove us back and continued
bothering us all night, biting through our blankets and giving us very
little peace, though we slept with our hats, veils, and gloves on. We
afterwards found that Circle City had at first been actually started at
about this point, but was soon afterwards moved further down, to where
we found it the next day.
We had been looking forward to our arrival in this place for several
reasons, one of which was that we had had no fresh meat for over a
month, and hoped to find moose or caribou for sale. As our boat came
around the bend and approached the settlement of log huts dignified
by the name of Circle City, we noticed quite a large number of people
crowding down to the shore to meet us, and as soon as we got within
hailing distance one of the foremost yelled out:
"Got any moose meat?"
When we answered "No," the crowd immediately dispersed and we did not
need to inquire about the supply of fresh meat in camp.
We landed in front of the Alaska Commercial Company's store, kept by
Jack McQuesten. On jumping ashore, I went up immediately, in search
of information, and as I stepped in I heard my name called in a loud
voice. I answered promptly "Here," with no idea of what was wanted, for
there was a large crowd in the store; but from the centre of the room
something was passed from hand to hand towards me, which proved to be
a package of letters from home--the first news I had received for over
two months. On inquiry I found that the mail up the river had just
arrived, and the storekeeper, who was also postmaster _ex officio_,
had begun calling out the addresses on the letters to the expectant
crowd of miners, and had got to my name as I entered the door--a
coincidence, I suppose, but surely a pleasant and striking one.
We obtained lodgings in a log house, large for Circle City, since
it contained two rooms. It was already occupied by two customhouse
officers, the only representatives of Uncle Sam whom we encountered
in the whole region. One room had been used as a storeroom and
carpenter-shop, and here, on the shavings, we spread out our blankets
and made ourselves at home.
The building had first been built as a church by missionaries, but
as they were absent for some time after its completion, one room was
fitted up with a bar by a newly arrived enterprising liquor-dealer,
till the officers, armed in their turn with the full sanction of the
church, turned the building into a customhouse and hoisted the American
flag, on a pole fashioned out of a slim spruce by the customs officer
himself. The officers, when we came there, were sleeping days and
working nights on the trail of some whisky smugglers who were in the
habit of bringing liquor down the river from Canadian territory, in
defiance of the American laws.
There were only a few hundred men in Circle City at this time, most of
the miners being away at the diggings, for this was one of the busiest
times of the year. These diggings were sixty miles from the camp, and
were only to be reached by a foot trail which led through wood and
swamp. Several newcomers in the country were camped around the post,
waiting for cooler weather before starting out on the trail, for the
mosquitoes, they said, were frightful. It was said that nobody had been
on the trail for two weeks, on this account, and blood-curdling stories
were told of the torments of some that had dared to try, and how strong
men had sat down on the trail to sob, quite unable to withstand the
pest. However, we had seen mosquitoes before, and the next morning
struck out for the trail.
It was called a wagon road, the brush and trees having been cut out
sufficiently wide for a wagon to pass; taken as a footpath, however,
it was just fair. The mosquitoes were actually in clouds; they were of
enormous size, and had vigorous appetites. It was hot, too, so that
their bites smarted worse than usual. The twelve miles, which the trail
as far as the crossing of Birch Creek had been said to be, lengthened
out into an actual fifteen, over low rolling country, till we descended
a sharp bluff to the stream. Here a hail brought a boatman across to
ferry us to the other side, where there stood two low log houses facing
one another, and connected overhead by their projecting log roofs.
[Illustration: ON THE TRAMP AGAIN.]
This was the Twelve Mile Cache, a road-house for miners, and here we
spent the night. Each of the buildings contained but a single room,
one house being used as a sleeping apartment, the other as kitchen
and dining-room. The host had no chairs to offer us, but only long
benches; and there were boxes and stumps for those who could not find
room on the benches, which were shorter than the tables. We ate out of
tin dishes and had only the regulation bacon, beans and apple-sauce,
yet it was with a curious feeling that we sat down to the meal and got
up from it, as if we were enjoying a little bit of luxury--for so it
seemed to us then. There were eleven of us who slept in the building
which had been set apart for sleeping; we all provided our own blankets
and slept on the floor, which was no other than the earth, and was so
full of humps and hollows, and projecting sharp sticks where saplings
had been cut off, that one or the other of the company was in misery
nearly all night, and roused the others with his cursings and growling.
The eight who were not of our party were miners returning from the
diggings with their season's earnings of gold in the packs strapped to
their backs; they all carried big revolvers and were on the lookout for
possible highwaymen.
On getting up we washed in the stream, ate breakfast, and prepared to
start out again. In the fine, bright morning light we noticed a sign
nailed up on the dining cabin, which we had not seen in the dusk of
the preceding evening. It was a notice to thieves, and a specimen of
miners' law in this rough country.
NOTICE.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.
_At a general meeting of miners held in Circle City it was
the unanimous Verdict that all thieving and stealing shall
be punished by WHIPPING AT THE POST AND BANISHMENT FROM THE
COUNTRY, the severity of the whipping and the guilt of the
accused to be determined by the Jury._
SO ALL THIEVES BEWARE.
Our packs were about twenty-five pounds each, and contained blankets,
a little corned beef and crackers, and a few other necessities: they
were heavy enough before the day was over. From Twelve Mile Cache to
the diggings we travelled over what was called the Hog'em trail, since
it led to the gulch of that name: it ran for the whole distance through
a swamp, and was said to be a very good trail in winter--in summer
it was vile. We had been informed of a way which branched off from
the Hog'em route and ran over drier ground to a road-house called the
"Central House," but we were unable to pick up this; and we discovered
afterwards that it had been blazed from the Central House, but that the
blazing had been discontinued two or three miles before reaching the
junction of the Hog'em trail, the axe-man having got tired, or having
gone home for his dinner and forgotten to come back. So people like
ourselves, starting for the diggings, invariably followed the Hog'em
trail, whether they would or not, and those coming out of the diggings
and returning by way of the Central House, followed the blazes through
the woods till they stopped, and then wandered ahead blindly, often
getting lost.
The Hog'em trail was a continuous bed of black, soft, stinking,
sticky mud, for it had been well travelled over. At times there was
thick moss; and again broad pools of water of uncertain depth, with
mud bottoms, to be waded through; and long stretches covered with
"nigger-heads." We walked twelve miles of this trail without stopping
or eating, for the mosquitoes were bloodthirsty, and even hunger can
hardly tempt a man to bestride a "nigger-head" and lunch under such
conditions. We arrived at night at what was called the "Jump-Off,"--a
sharp descent which succeeded a gradual rise--where we found two sturdy
men, both old guides from the Adirondacks, engaged in felling the trees
which grew on the margin of the stream, and piling them into a log
house. This they intended to use as a road-house, for the travel here
was considerable, especially in the winter. In the meantime they were
living in a tent, yet maintained a sort of hostelry for travellers, in
that they dispensed meals to them. As soon as they were through with
the big log they were getting into place when we arrived, they built a
fire on the ground and cooked supper, after which we were invited to
spread our blankets, with the stars and the grey sky for a shelter.
They made some apologies at not being able to offer us a tent--theirs
was a tiny affair,--and promised better accommodations if we would come
back a month from then, when the cabin would be finished and the chinks
neatly plugged with muck and moss.
The next day's journey was again twelve miles, over about the same
kind of trail. Crossing a sluggish stream which was being converted
into a swamp by encroaching vegetation, we were obliged to wade nearly
waist deep, and then our feet rested on such oozy and sinking mud that
we did not know but the next moment we might disappear from sight
entirely. Further on, the trail ran fair into a small lake, whose
shores we had to skirt. There was no trail around, but much burnt and
felled timber lay everywhere, and climbing over this, balancing our
packs in the meantime, was "such fun." Sometimes we would jump down
from a high log, and, slipping a little, our packs would turn us around
in the air, and we would fall on our backs, sprawling like turtles, and
often unable to get out of our awkward position without help from our
comrades.
Reedy lakes such as this, fringed with moss and coarse grass, with
stunted spruce a little distance away, are common through this swampy
country, and have something of the picturesque about them. The
surrounding vegetation is very abundant. Excellent cranberries are
found, bright red in color and small in size; and on a little drier
ground blue-berries nourish. Raspberries of good size, although borne
on bushes usually not more than two or three inches high, are also
here; and red and black currants.
[Illustration: HOG'EM JUNCTION ROAD-HOUSE.]
At the end of the second day we arrived at Hog'em Junction, where the
Hog'em trail unites with that leading off to the other gulches where
gold is found. Here was the largest road-house we had seen. There were
fifteen or twenty men hanging about, mostly miners returning or going
to the diggings, and a professional hunter--a sort of wild man, who
told thrilling stories of fighting bears.
One of the structures we saw here was called the dog-corral and was
a big enclosure built of logs. Dogs were used to carry most of the
provisions to the Birch Creek diggings from Circle City, freighting
beginning as soon as the snow fell and everything froze hard. There was
a pack of these animals around the inn--a sneaking, cringing, hungry
lot, rarely barking at intruders or strangers, and easily cowed by a
man, but very prone to fight among themselves. They were all Indian
dogs, and were of two varieties; one long-haired, called Mahlemut,
from the fact that its home is among the Mahlemut Eskimo of the lower
Yukon; the other short-haired, and stouter. Both breeds are of large
size, and a good dog is capable of pulling as much as 400 pounds on a
sleigh, when the snow is very good, and the weather not too cold. The
dog-corral is used to put the sleighs in when the freighter arrives,
and the dogs are left outside, to keep them away from the provisions.
The winter price for freight from Circle City was seven cents per
pound; in summer it was forty.
We ate breakfast and supper at Hog'em Junction, paying a dollar apiece
for the meals; and when we learned that the bacon which was served to
us had cost sixty-five cents a pound, the charge did not seem too much.
No good bacon was to be had, that which we ate being decidedly strong;
and even this kind had to be hunted after at this time of the year. Not
only was food very high in the diggings, but it could not always be
bought, so that in the winter, when freighting was cheap, enough could
not often be obtained to last through the next summer, and the miners
had to wait for the steamer to come up the Yukon. The Hog'em Junction
innkeeper paid twenty dollars for a case of evaporated fruit, such as
cost a dollar in San Francisco; condensed milk was one dollar a can,
and sugar eighty-five cents a pound. The previous winter beans brought
one dollar a pound, and butter two and a half dollars a roll. In summer
all prices were those of Circle City, plus forty cents freighting, plus
ten cents handling. So a sack of potatoes, which I was told would cost
twenty-five cents in the state of Washington, cost here eighty-five
dollars. Even in Circle City the prices, though comparatively low, were
not exactly what people would expect at a bargain counter in one of
our cities. Winchester rifles were sold for fifty dollars apiece, and
calico brought fifty cents a yard. Luckily there were few women folks
in the country at that time!
Of the Hog'em Junction Inn I have little distinct recollection except
concerning the meals. We were so hungry when we reached there that
the food question was indelibly branded on our memory. For the rest
I remember that when supper was cleared away, the guests wrapped
themselves in their private blankets and lay down anywhere they thought
best. There was a log outhouse with some rude bunks filled with straw,
for those who preferred, so in a short time we were stowed away with
truly mediæval simplicity, to sleep heavily until the summons came to
breakfast,--for there were no "hotel hours" for lazy guests at this
inn, and he who did not turn out for a seven o'clock breakfast could go
without.
We three separated on leaving here, each taking a different trail,
so that we might see all of the gulches in a short space of time. I
shouldered my blankets and after a seven mile tramp through the brush
came to the foot of Hog'em Gulch, which was in a deep valley in the
hills that now rose above the plain. This gulch derived its name
from the fact that its discoverer tried to _hog_ all the claims for
himself, taking up some for his wife, his wife's brother, his brother,
and the niece of his wife's particular friend; even, it is said,
inventing fictitious personages that he might stake out claims for
them. The other miners disappointed him in his schemes for gain, and
they contemptuously called the creek "Hog'em." Afterwards a faction
of the claim-owners proposed to change the name to Deadwood, claiming
that it sounded better and was also appropriate, inasmuch as they had
got that variety of timber on the schemer. It was somewhat unkindly
asserted, however, by those who were not residents of the gulch, that
the first name was always the most appropriate, since the spirit of the
discoverer seemed to have gone down to his successors.
Be that as it may, I noticed a remarkable difference between the men
whom I found working their claims along the creek and the miners of
Forty Mile. Nobody showed the slightest hospitality or friendliness,
except one man on the lower creek, who invited me to share his little
tent at night. He had not enough blankets to keep him warm, so I added
mine, and beneath them both we two slept very comfortably. In the
morning he cooked a very simple meal over a tiny fire outside of the
tent--wood was scarce along here--and invited me, with little talk,
to partake of it with him. He was evidently far from happy in this
cheerless existence; he was working for wages, which, to be sure, were
ten dollars a day, but with provisions as high as they were this was
nothing much, and the work was so hard that, great stalwart man as he
was, he had lost thirty pounds since he had begun. He would have liked
to return to the States, for he was somewhat discouraged, but he could
not save enough money to pay for the expensive passage out. I hope he
has struck it rich since then and brought back to his wife and babies
the fortune he went to seek!
[Illustration: ON HOG'EM GULCH.]
After I left this silent man, I found none who showed much interest.
Some of them were a little curious as to what I was doing, but most
of them were fiercely and feverishly working to make the most of the
hours and weeks which remained of the mining season; the run of gold
was ordinarily very good, and all were anxious to make as good a final
clean-up as possible. At dinner-time everybody rushed to their meal,
and I sat down by the side of the trail, ate stale corned beef, broken
crackers, and drank the creek water. When I was half-way through I
observed two young men in a tent munching their meal, but watching
me; and a sort of righteous indignation came upon me, as must always
seize the poor when he beholds the abundance of the rich man's table. I
walked into the tent and asked for a share of their dinner. They gave
me a place, but so surlily that I said hotly, "See here, I'll pay you
for this dinner, so don't be so stingy about it." The offer to pay was
an insult to the miner's tradition and one of them growled out,
"None of that kind of talk, d'ye hear? You're welcome to whatever we've
got, and don't yer forget it! Only there's been a good many bums along
here lately, and we was getting tired of them."
After this they were pleasanter, although I could not help reflecting
that I was actually a bum, as they put it, and mentally pitied the
professional tramp, if his evil destiny should ever lead him into the
Yukon country.
As it grew near nightfall I climbed out of the gulch, and, crossing
the ridge, dropped down into Greenhorn Gulch, which, with its neighbor
Tinhorn Gulch, form depressions parallel to Hog'em. There was only one
claim working here, and on this the supply of water was so scarce that
not much washing could be done. The people seemed like those of Hog'em
Gulch, and took little notice of strangers. Having learned a new code
of manners on Birch Creek, however, I walked into the cabin where
one of the claim owners was getting supper. He was a short, powerful,
fierce-eyed man, who never smiled, and spoke with an almost frenzied
earnestness. He did not speak for some time, however, but glared
suspiciously when I walked in. I looked at him without nodding, took
off my pack and put it in the corner, sat down on a stool and fished
my pipe out of my pocket. He glared until he was tired, and then said:
"Hallo!"
"Hallo," I returned, and drawing up to the table, began working with my
specimens and notebook. Looking up and finding him still regarding me,
I continued: "How's the claim turning out?"
"Pretty fair!" he growled. "What in h--l are _you_ reportin' for?"
"Uncle Sam," I replied. He was from the moonshine district of
Tennessee, and this was no recommendation to him, so he kept his eye
on me. Presently his "pardner" came in and looked at me inquiringly. I
spoke to him quite warmly, as if I was welcoming him to the cabin. Soon
supper was ready, and the fierce-eyed moonshiner looked at me four or
five times, then said, beckoning me to the table: "Set up."
After supper the two men crawled into their bunks; I spread my blankets
on the floor. The Tennessee man poked his head out.
"Goin' to sleep on the floor?" he asked.
"Yes," answered I. He crawled out and pulled a caribou hide from the
rafters above.
"Lay on that," he said.
When I thanked him, he looked at me suspiciously.
In the morning I sat down to breakfast without being asked, and ate
enormously and silently. The moonshiner warmed up at this.
"You're a better sort of feller than I thought at first," he said; "I
thought you was goin' to be one of them d--d polite fellers."
"Me? Oh, no; not me," I replied, "you're thinkin' of some one else, I
reckon?"
After breakfast he showed me his gold dust; a little flat piece
interested me, and I said, "Gimme that, I'll pay yer; what's it worth?"
"Nothin'," he replied. "Yer can take it."
Afterwards I shouldered my pack and made for the door; when I got there
I stopped and looked over my shoulder and said, "So long!"
"So long to _you_!" he answered, looking after me with more human
interest than I had previously seen in him. "Stop here when you come
this way again."
I climbed out of the gulch and walked along the mountain ridge for a
while, encountering, whenever there was no wind, swarms of the tiny
gnats which the miners often dread worse than the mosquitoes. They
are so numerous as actually to obscure the sun in places and they
fill nose, ears, and eyes; there is no escape from them, for they
are so small that they go through the meshes of a mosquito net with
the greatest ease. On top of the ridge, where the wind blew, they
disappeared. As I walked along here I met a prospector, and after a
friendly talk with him, dropped down another mountain-side to the bed
of Independence Creek, and followed that to the junction of Mammoth
Creek, so called from the number of bones of the extinct elephant,
or mammoth, which are buried there. Wading across a swamp, I found
in the brush another road-house, the Mammoth Junction. This was a
large log building containing a single room, which served as kitchen,
dining-room, parlor, general bedroom, and barroom. At first I was the
only guest, but afterwards a prospector arrived from a hard trip to the
Tanana, and he related his experiences; how he had shot three bears,
seven caribou, and a moose in seven days. He was a tall, well-built
Cape Bretoner, Dick McDonald by name. When he got tired of talking
I spread my blankets on the floor (for which privilege I paid fifty
cents) and gladly stowed myself away for the night.
The next day a tramp of seventeen miles brought me to the Central
House, on the way home from the diggings; for although our rendezvous
should have been at Mammoth Junction, yet I concluded to wait for the
others at Circle City. The trail was very bad, and during the first
part of the journey the gnats were as annoying as they had been on
the mountains the day before. There were millions of them. During the
last part the mosquitoes got the upper hand, and gave me the strictest
attention.
"Ah," I soliloquized, perspiring freely and tugging at my pack
straps like a jaded horse at his harness, "the trials of an Alaskan
pioneer! Stumbling and staggering through mud knee-deep, and through
nigger-heads, wading streams, fighting gnats and mosquitoes, suffering
often from hunger and thirst, and rolling into one's sole pair of
blankets under the frosty stars or the rain-clouds!"
When my views were thus gloomy, a smell of smoke came to my nostrils,
and crossing a little stream on a fallen tree, I came to the friendly
inn I was seeking.
The next morning, at five o'clock by my watch and eight by the host's,
(it is unnecessary to observe that there was no standard time used in
the Birch Creek district) I started for Twelve Mile Cache. The first
part of the trail was fairly well worn, but was covered with small dead
trees which had fallen across it, necessitating the continual lifting
of the feet and the taking of irregular steps. Ten miles of this was
enough to make one very weary. I lunched on my stale corned beef and
cracker crumbs, and drank from a little creek that I crossed. Soon
after this, I came to a place where a newly blazed trail, leading to
the Twelve Mile Cache, diverged from the older path, which ran up
over the mountains. Deciding to take the newer route, I found it very
hard walking, especially as my feet were clad in the Eskimo sealskin
boot, or makalok, which are soft and offer little protection. Much of
the road lay among immense untrodden nigger-heads and in swampy brush,
where the sticks which had been cut off in making the trail stuck up
three or four inches above the ground, just convenient for stubbing the
toe; and yet the long grass quite concealed them, so they could not
be avoided. Afterwards the trail struck into an old winter sleighing
road, and I got on more rapidly for a few miles; but the mosquitoes had
increased to legions and stung painfully. The gnats and flies were also
numerous, the big deer flies biting my ears where the mosquito netting
rested on them, till they were bloody.
At about four o'clock the cut trail came to an end, and here was a
stick pointing into the woods, inscribed:
"FOLLER THES BLAIES TO TWELV MILL HOUSE. SIX MILLS TO TWELV MILL HOUSE
9 MILLS CENTRAL HOUSE."
The "blaies" (blazes) had been newly cut, and as I started to follow
them, it seemed that they led through the thickest of the brush,
where it was almost impossible to fight one's way, especially with a
pack, which protrudes on both sides of the shoulders, and which often
wedges one firmly between two saplings. Soon the blazes grew further
and further apart; after leaving one it often took ten minutes to
find the next, scouting around everywhere in the tangle of bushes.
The mosquitoes kept up their attacks, and my head began to ache
splittingly, partly from their bites and partly from the jerking of the
head strap of my pack in my struggles through the brush.
At last in despair I abandoned the attempt to follow the blazes,
and turning square away from them, struck off in the direction
where I knew the Hog'em Junction trail, by which we had reached the
diggings, must lie, steering by my compass. Very soon I found better
walking,--comparatively open swampy patches, with alder thickets
between--and in half a mile I cut into the trail I was seeking. Three
miles of this trail brought me to Twelve Mile Cache, after one of the
hardest days I had had in Alaska. Compared with such a trip as this
the dreaded Chilkoot Pass was not so formidable, after all. The entire
distance I had travelled was twenty-seven miles. I had counted my paces
through it all, and they tallied with the count of my companions, who
came on later.
For supper at Twelve Mile Cache we had fresh fish,--pike and Arctic
trout--taken from a trap in the river, and fresh vegetables raised on
the roof, which was covered with a luxuriant garden. A thick layer
of rich loam had been put on, and the seed dropped into this throve
amazingly, for the fires inside the cabin supplied warmth, and the
plants did not have to fight against the eternal frost which lies
everywhere a short distance below the surface. The long glorious
sunshine of the northern summer did the rest, and splendid potatoes,
rutabagas, cabbages, beets, and lettuce were the results.
The fifteen miles back to Circle City the next day was a very weary
walk, for my overwork on the day before had left me tired out. The
mosquitoes were maddening on the last part of the trail, in spite of
gloves and veil. On getting into Circle City, however, I was kindly
welcomed by my friends, the customs officers, and given a square meal.
The room we had occupied as a bedroom had, in the short time since we
had left, been put to still other uses. A newly arrived physician was
using it for a laboratory, and a man who had brought a scow load of
merchandise down the Yukon was storing his stuff in the same room. Also
a red-sweatered young man turned up who said he had been told to sleep
here, but the customs officers kicked him out and he went and slept
under an upturned boat on the bank. After a bath I felt refreshed,
but glancing into a looking-glass for the first time for many a day,
I saw that my appearance was still against me. I was a long-haired,
bushy-bearded, ragged, belted and knifed wild man, not fair to look
upon.
I spent the next day in wandering around town in a desultory fashion,
and on returning to the customhouse found the door locked. When I
knocked I was challenged and then cautiously admitted: on entering
I was surprised to see the officers with their rifles ready for use
alongside of them. Ross lifted up the strip of calico which formed a
curtain hiding the space under the bed and disclosed two good-sized
kegs. These he told me he and Wendling (the other officer) had seized
while we were away. It was, and is, entirely illegal to bring liquor
into the territory of Alaska, and this law and its attendant features
have brought about much of the dishonesty and corruption which have
made the inside history of Alaskan government since its acquisition by
Americans such a dismal one.
[Illustration: CUSTOM HOUSE AT CIRCLE CITY.]
In Circle City liquor was freely brought down the river from the
British side of the boundary. The first customs inspector was said to
have been a notorious rascal, who had not only winked at the bringing
in of liquor, but had taken a hand in the trade himself. The present
representatives of the government, however, seemed to wish to do
their duty, and their watching nights and sleeping days had finally
resulted in their trapping the smugglers as they were landing, and
they had captured the whisky and had brought it to the customhouse,
where the whole camp knew it to be. The whole camp was interested in
it, moreover, for it had been whisky-dry; and the feeling towards the
officers was probably none of the best in any quarter, although most
recognized that they were simply doing their duty. At the enormously
high prices which prevailed, these two kegs were worth several thousand
dollars, and so were valuable booty. Therefore, a plot had been hatched
to recover the liquor, and this plot had come to the officers' ears
a few hours before the _coup_ was to have taken place. Hence the
caution and warlike preparations which greeted me. The men from whom
the whisky had been taken were the leaders in the scheme, and they
had also enlisted several miners, among them a gigantic fellow who
called himself "Caribou Bill," and whom I had met on the trail to
the diggings. Bill gave the thing away by going to a saloon-keeper
and trying to borrow a second revolver--he already had one. On being
questioned as to why he wanted it, he took the saloon-keeper into his
confidence. The saloon-keeper told a friend of his, who being also a
friend of one of the customs officers, cautioned him.
Both of the officers advised me to go elsewhere till the trouble was
over, but reflecting that I was their guest and so under obligations
to them, and also that I was an officer of Uncle Sam, and was in duty
bound to "uphold the government of the United States by land and sea,
against foreign and domestic enemies" as had been specified in my oath
of office, I decided to remain with them. Ross hunted up two of his
old friends among the miners and told them he proposed to resist the
attack till the last, and that if there should be any bloodshed he
hoped the camp would treat him fairly, considering that he had simply
been doing his duty. The miners offered to stay with us and help in the
resistance, but as we knew their hearts were hardly in their offer of
loyalty, we refused to let them stay. One of them, however, loaned his
rifle to Wendling; and as he went to get it, a couple of forms behind
the house jumped up and ran away. The other miner, who had also gone
out for a moment, returned with the news that he had seen four men
skulking behind the bank which lay in front of the house.
The plan of the smugglers and their friends, as Ross had learned it,
was to come to the door of the cabin and knock. When the officer went
to the door to open it, he would be covered with a revolver, and the
second officer with another, and the whisky would be rolled out and
over the bank into a boat which would convey it up the river into a
new hiding-place. If the officers resisted they would be shot and the
whisky taken just the same. The plan we determined upon was to leave
the door unlocked, so that when the expected knock should come we
would not have to go to the door to open it, but would call out "Come
in" without stirring. I had my post on a box near the wall directly
opposite the door, while Ross sat in the darkness close by the window,
so that when the knocker should enter he would find the muzzles of
repeating rifles levelled at him from two opposite directions, and be
invited to drop his fire-arms and surrender. Wendling was in the other
room watching the second door and window, but we did not expect the
attack to be made there, since the smugglers must know very well that
the whisky was in the officers' living-room, where we were.
Directly after we had taken our places a man came and stood twenty
yards in front of the cabin in the dusk, and beckoned. Ross went out
to him, and a long talk ensued, which ended by the officer returning.
He said that the man had told him that we were three against many, and
that they were bound to get the whisky anyway, since it was theirs and
they would fight for it; so if Ross would simply yield without fighting
it would save us. At the same time they would be willing to pay him a
nice little sum as a plaster wherewith to heal his wounded dignity.
Ross had replied that they had mistaken their man; whereupon he was
informed that he must take the consequences. So he returned, and we
waited with tense nerves, in momentary expectation of an attack, our
eyes strained, our fingers on the triggers of our cocked rifles, our
ears listening.
After an hour or more had passed, and no sound was heard, the suspense
began to grow unbearable. Ross whispered to me, "If them fellers are
coming I wish they'd hurry up, and not keep us waiting here all night."
Shortly afterwards Wendling, crawling cautiously and silently around
in the other room, knocked down from some shelf on the wall a pile
of tin pans, which made a terrific rattle and bang; this upset our
tightly-drawn nerves so that we laughed convulsively, trying to choke
down our merriment so that it could not be heard. Still no noise from
the outside, save that once we heard coughing behind the logs at the
back of the building. Ross, peering through the window, saw now and
then a shadowy form creeping along the bank in front; and Wendling,
reconnoitring through the window in the other room, saw other figures
passing around back of the house. And still no alarm. Sitting bolt
upright on my box, I suddenly caught my head, which was in the act of
falling forward--caught it with a jerk which brought my eyes wide open,
and at the same time horror filled my soul--I was in danger of falling
asleep! This frightened me so that I kept awake easily after that. So
we waited till the morning grey brightened in the sky, when finally
Ross remarked: "Well, there's no more danger, and I'm tired enough to
sleep." We rolled ourselves in our blankets and dropped asleep without
a moment's delay, not waking until the day was late and Goodrich and
Schrader, just returning from the diggings, pounded on the door and
asked for admission and a bite to eat.
Concerning the reasons why the raid was given up, there was much inner
history that I never learned. I suspect that the miners who had offered
to help us afterwards warned the smugglers, telling them how well we
were prepared, and that this kept them from carrying out their plans.
The next night a grand ball was gotten up by the ladies of Circle City,
and our bedroom in the customhouse--being one of the largest places
available--was selected as the scene of the dance. I was requested to
write the announcements of the ball, which I did, and stuck one up on
each of the Companies' stores. They ran as follows:
SOCIAL DANCE.
_There will be a SOCIAL DANCE
given by the ladies of CIRCLE CITY
Wednesday Eve. Aug. 19th,
At the residence of Mr. George Ross.
The supply of ice cream brought up on the
Arctic being exhausted, there will be
no collation.
No rubber boots allowed on the floor.
Dogs must be tied with ribbons in the anteroom._
After the notices were posted, one of the customs officers came to me
in great perturbation concerning the regulation about rubber boots,
saying that such a restriction would exclude many desirable and
well-meaning gentlemen who would otherwise be able to attend.
The shavings were swept out of the room and our beds and other stuff
cleared out. Wax candles were cut up and rubbed on the floor, and by
dusk everything was in readiness. One of the trading companies donated
the candles, which were stuck up around the room to the extent of
nearly a dozen, and furnished a brilliant illumination. The services
of a pock-marked vagabond who was employed around a saloon and
dance-house was secured as director of the affair, and two miners just
in from the gulches (they had taken only one change of clothes to the
diggings and had not had time to change them after coming back before
going to the dance), furnished the orchestra, playing very acceptably
on guitar and fiddle. The music was all classical,--Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay
or the Irish washerwoman occupying most of the time. Each of the
players was so enthusiastic in his art that he often entirely forgot
his companion, and would be fiddling away at the closing spasms of
Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, with perspiring zeal, when his more rapid partner
had finished this tune and was merrily galloping through
"Wuz ye iver inside of an Irishman's shanty?
Wid salt an' peraties an' iverything planty,
A three-legged stool an' a table to match,
And the door of the shanty unlocks wid a latch!"
The pock-marked director yelled out "_Swing_ your pardners. _Ladies_
to the left. _Forward_ and back! _Alleman left!_ etc.," loud above the
squeak of the stringed instruments. The couples gyrated in eccentric
curves around in obedience to the cries; the candles flickered in the
draft from the open door; and a row of miners too bashful to dance, or
who could find no partners, sat on boxes close to the wall, hunched up
their legs and spit tobacco-juice, until the middle of the floor was a
sort of an island. In short, it was the most brilliant affair Circle
City had ever witnessed; even the Indians who crowded around the open
door and peered in over one another's heads murmured in admiration, and
all agreed that it was a "_haioo_ time", which is equivalent to saying
a rip-roaring time. This was not the first dance held in the camp.
The small but powerful contingent of ladies of adventure held nightly
dances, but this was the first where the ladies were respectable.
We were hard put to it for finery. The dancer of our party, having, as
we explained to him, to bear in a way the brunt of the social duties
for us all, bought a new pair of blue overalls, much too large for
him; these he turned up at the bottom, and braced up mightily, so that
they covered many shortcomings; then he bought a green and yellow
abomination of a necktie, which had been designed to catch the heathen
fancy of the natives, plastered his hair down, and worried the tangles
out of his beard. After this he was the beau of the evening, the gayest
of the gay, being snubbed by only one woman, and she of doubtful
reputation, as we consolingly reminded him.
The men in general wore the most varied costumes, high boots being
the prevailing style, though even the rubber boots I had been so near
forbidding were seen; then one might notice the Indian moccasins, and
the sealskin makalok, which had been brought up from the Eskimos on the
lower Yukon. Flannel shirts without coat or vests were the rule, for
the night was warm. Here and there was a corduroy coat, or a mackinaw
checked with red and green squares four inches across, but the wearers
of them suffered for their vanity. In striking and almost ridiculous
contrast to this picturesque attire was the black cutaway suit and
polished shoes of the baker who had just arrived on a Yukon steamer
from St. Michael's.
After midnight we had cake, which the ladies had brought with them, and
considering the fact that they had so little material for cooking, the
variety and excellence were remarkable. Underneath the festive board
which covered the bed still lay concealed the two kegs of whisky which
we had watched over the night before. It was at a late hour (to adopt
country newspaper phraseology) that the company broke up, loud in their
praises of the success of the fête, and returned to their respective
homes. We then rolled our blankets out upon the waxed floor, and lay
down for another night.
The same day a river steamer had arrived in Circle City from the lower
Yukon, bringing our trunks to us, which we had sent around by water
from Seattle. These were well filled with a goodly outfit for the
winter, for we had expected that our work would take us two seasons. We
had, however, gotten on twice as well as we had expected, and already
saw the end of our task ahead, so there was nothing to hinder us from
going out this same fall. The freight on our three trunks from Seattle
was one hundred and eighty dollars, and we did not feel justified in
expending a like sum to carry them back. We therefore determined to
sell our things, and the day after the party I wrote out notices
announcing an auction to be held in the room where we had danced.
Wendling volunteered to act as auctioneer, provided he were allowed
to work in as part of our effects several hundred pounds of tobacco
which he had brought up as a speculation. At seven o'clock we started
in, having borrowed a pair of gold-scales for the sake of transacting
the financial part of the business, for almost the sole currency of
the camp was gold dust. Not being ourselves accustomed to the delicate
operation of weighing, we persuaded some of the miners to do it for us,
so that there should be no question as to fairness. At eight the miners
began leaving and we were told that a miners' meeting had been called,
so we adjourned for an hour, and attended the gathering.
The miners' meeting was the sole legislative, judiciary and executive
body in these little republics. To settle any question whatever, any
one had the right to call such a council, which brought the issue to
a summary close. This one was held in the open air close to the river
bank in front of the Company's store. The miners flocked together and
conversed in groups. Nobody knew who had called the meeting or why;
but presently some grew impatient, remarking: "Let's have the meeting.
Who's for chairman?"
One man answered: "What's the matter with Sandy Jim for chairman? Here
he is, just in from the diggings! Come over here, Jim!"
"Second the motion, somebody. Any body object to Sandy Jim?" said the
first speaker. "Climb up on the box, Sandy, my boy."
Sandy Jim was a slender, blonde young man with quiet manners, and a
style of speech which told of a good education. He mounted the box
in the centre of the crowd, and having thus obtained a commanding
position, he began, with correct parliamentary methods, to bring
about order. Having requested silence, he inquired who had called the
meeting. A man who acted as town clerk or some similar officer in the
miners' vague system of government, explained that he had issued the
call, to inform the miners that some one had settled upon a piece
of land that had been set aside for town purposes, and, in spite of
warnings to the contrary, was proceeding to erect a log house upon it;
and that the tent temporarily occupied by the individual mentioned
was already pitched upon the lot. As an officer of the camp he had
felt in duty bound to call a meeting and let the boys decide what was
to be done. Instantly there was a rattle of contradictory suggestions,
everybody addressing everybody else, and forgetting to turn to the
chairman. Finally a tall man with a heavy black beard mounted the box
and addressed the meeting, arguing coldly and logically that the person
had acted in defiance of the miners' meeting, which was the only law
they had; and proposing that he be fined, and in case he resisted
further, put in a boat and set floating down the Yukon. There was a
general murmur of approval, and the chairman, putting the question to
a vote, found a fairly unanimous verdict in favor of the speaker's
suggestion.
"Before I appoint a committee," said the chairman, "the meeting should
know who the person is who has to be dealt with, and I will ask the
gentleman who called the meeting to give the information."
The clerk of the camp elbowed his way forward a little. "I've been
trying to get a word in for a long time," he said. "I don't think we
ought to be so hard in this case. You all know the person--it's Black
Kitty. She's a woman, even if she _is_ black and a fighter, and she's
alone and working for a living. I move we go it easy."
Amid another buzz the tall bearded man got up and remarked: "That's
different. I don't think any one wanted to quarrel with a woman, and
a black one at that." This was only his way of expressing it, for he
certainly did not mean that he would rather have quarrelled with a
white woman. "Anyhow, there's plenty of land for public purposes out
there in the brush, and I move an amendment that we let Kitty alone!"
In defiance of all parliamentary usage, this amendment was accepted
with a chorus of approval by the crowd, which, satisfied with itself,
scattered almost before the chairman could make himself heard,
sanctioning and proclaiming valid the last expression of opinion.
Most of the miners returned to our cabin, where the auction began
again, and lasted till twelve o'clock, by which time we had sold nearly
everything we cared to, at prices a little above cost in Seattle.
Wendling also succeeded in disposing of a hundred pounds of his
tobacco, putting up lots every now and then. Some miners expressed
surprise to Ross that we should use so much tobacco, and Ross winked
and put his finger on his nose and said, "You don't know the inside,
that's all. See that little feller over there?" indicating me. "That
little feller chews a pound a day. Yes, sir! He eats it sometimes."
The next morning we weighed out our gold dust and found it some
twenty-five dollars more than we had any record of, from which we
inferred that the miners who had so kindly superintended the weighing
of the various sums paid in had been a little generous, and always
given full weight. When we got to San Francisco, and presented our gold
dust at the mint, where it was weighed accurately, we received several
dollars more for it than we made it from our final weighing; so it
appears that the Yukon miner's currency is none of the most accurate.
Stories were told around camp, of barkeepers who panned the sawdust on
their floor and made good wages at it; and it was alleged that one had
a strip of carpet on his counter, into which he let fall a trifle of
gold dust every time he took a pinch for a drink of whisky, and at the
end of the day, by taking up his carpet and shaking it, he had a nice
little sum over his day's earnings.