Chapter XVI

Soapy Smith, the Skagway Bandit

Foreword

Pte. Clarke of the Orderly Room staff told me how my coming as

Chaplain to the 43rd in 1917 was announced to the men attached to

Battalion Headquarters. They were "killing time" off duty in one of

the cellars under the brick-piles on the flats facing Avion. I give

it in his own words as well as memory recalls them.

"We knew," he said, "that D. T. Macpherson had some news by the

hurried way he slithered down the muddy dug-out steps. He came with

bent head over to the candle-light where a bunch of us were resting

after a few hours "running" and "mending wire" with explosive

hardware dropping around us. 'Well,' said Mac, when he got over near

us, 'I've got a new job and it's a cushy one. No more listening-post

for me or walking around in a front-line trench asking for a blighty.

Nay, nay! The new chaplain has arrived and I'm his batman. After

this I'll have to work only one day a week. On Sundays I'll pass

around the hymn-books, lead the singing, and see that none of you

fellows miss church parade.' 'You'll last about two weeks, Mac,'

said Jesse Elder. 'The chaplain will have to get rid of you if he

wants to make good. Otherwise you'd handicap him, corrupt him and

kill his influence. But what's his name and where is he from?' 'His

name is Pringle, Capt. George Pringle. I heard him tell the O.C.

that he had spent years in the Klondike Goldfields in early days.'

'Well,' Elder replied, 'that sounds good. He ought to be able to

give us some Rex Beach-Jack London stuff. See what sort he is, Mac,

and when you get better acquainted sound him about coming

under-ground here to give us some stories of the North.' The

proposition sounded all right and Macpherson said he'd try for it."

When Mac put the request to me I welcomed the chance it gave me to

talk to ready listeners about a land I love, to me the fairest under

heaven. The men were always eager to listen, eager because the

stories were about Canada and they were home-sick. Also because in

every man there is something that stirs responsive to tales of the

mystic Northland, vast, white, and silent. Then besides, the mad

years of the Great Stampede had their own appeal, when the golden

treasures were found and adventurers from the Seven Seas rushed to

the discovery. What days those were, filled with tragedy and comedy,

shameful things we would fain forget but can't, incidents too of

heroism and comradeship that will live in our memories forever, and

through it all, bad and good, an intense, throbbing life that was

irresistibly fascinating. Little wonder that my soldiers, out

themselves on a great adventure, would listen to stories of the Yukon

and its adventurers in those glorious Stampede days.

Many an hour have I spent with my men off duty spinning these

"sourdough" yarns, and I know very often we forgot for the time the

dugout and the trench, hardly hearing the boom of the guns or

bursting shells.

The incidents are true both in prologue and story. In "The Lost

Patrol" and "Soapy Smith" I am indebted to my good friends

Staff-Sergt. Joy of the R.N.W.M.P. and Mr. D. C. Stephens of Vananda,

for inside information not otherwise obtainable. Mr. George P.

Mackenzie, Gold Commissioner for the Yukon, has given me data I

needed from government records. I am very grateful to my former

"O.C.," Lieut.-Colonel H. M. Urquhart, M.C., D.S.O., now commanding

the 1st Battalion Canadian Scottish, for arduous work done by him in

getting my manuscript into shape. The preparation of these sketches,

as they now stand, came about largely through the kindly

encouragement and expert advice of Dr. Haddow of the _Presbyterian

Witness_ in which journal some of them were published.

The stories are put down pretty much as I told them. I have had, of

course, to make some changes to suit a written narrative offered to a

larger circle. The language and style are homely, for the stories

were first given in simple words and I have tried to reproduce them.

Some names have been changed for obvious reasons. Probably I seem at

times to speak much about myself; where this happens I couldn't avoid

it in telling my story. For the rest I make no excuse. There is one

advantage about a book, if you don't like it you can shut it up!

If these pages serve to keep alive old friendships and pleasant

memories among my "tillicums" of the trail, and the men in khaki to

whom I ministered, I shall be content.

GEORGE C. F. PRINGLE.

Vananda, Texada Island, B.C.

Tillicums of the Trail

_I._

_The Fan-Tail Trail_

A night in June 1917 found me under one of the brick-piles on the

Avion front in a safe little cellar that the Hun had fixed up for

himself and then turned over to us. I was seated on some sand-bags

set against the wall, with a "capacity house" to hear a Klondike

tale. A few candles gave a dim light hazy with thick tobacco smoke,

making it easier for fancy to have free course. There were no

interruptions except the occasional call from the top of the dug-out

stairs for some man to report for duty. The sound of shells and guns

came dully to our ears and seemed unheard as, in imagination, we

travelled afar to fairer climes and by-gone days.

* * * * *

I'll tell you to-night of my first trip to the North and my first

attempt to travel with a dog-team on a winter trail.

In 1899 I was a Missionary in the back-woods of Minnesota learning to

preach, practising on our American cousins out of consideration for

the feelings of my fellow-Canadians! I was quite contented in my

work, preaching at little country schoolhouses with long distances to

drive between, but getting everywhere the best they had of

hospitality.

One day in the winter of 1899-1900 a telegram came to me from Dr.

Robertson our Canadian Superintendent of Missions asking me, if

agreeable, to report at Winnipeg that week for duty in the Yukon. I

couldn't resist "the call of the wild" and I wired acceptance of the

appointment. Two weeks later I was on the C.P.R. headed for

Vancouver. There I got a berth on a little steamboat named the

_Cutch_, bound for Skagway, Alaska, the great gateway to the "Golden

North."

I'll not easily forget that trip. The boat was crowded beyond what

seemed possible. Every berth was twice taken, one man sleeping at

night the other in the daytime. The floors of the cabins were

occupied as berths night and day. They slept under the tables and on

them and in the gangways and on the decks. Meals were "on" all day

in order to get everyone served. There were some wild times aboard

and plenty of discomfort, but the greatest good-feeling generally

prevailed for the boat was headed north and every hour brought them

nearer to the land where fortunes were made in a day. Amazing

stories, and all the more amazing because they were true, had come

south telling of the richness of the new gold-fields. Gold-dust and

nuggets lay scattered apparently without known limit in the gravels

and schist of the creeks. It was a "poor man's diggings" too. A

stout back, a pick, a pan, a shovel and a little "grub" were all you

needed. After two or three days' work it might be your luck to

strike the pay-streak and have your secret dreams of sudden wealth

come true. Why not you as well as those other fellows? There was

Lippi who had already cleaned up a million out of a part of his 250

feet on Eldorado, Macdonald "the Klondike King," otherwise, "Big Alec

the Moose," who had been offered in London five million for his

interests, Dick Lowe who owned a 50-foot "fraction" on Bonanza that

some said had almost as much gold as dirt in it. Johannsen and

Anderson, the "Lucky Swedes" and "Skiff" Mitchell who worked No. 1 on

Eldorado. These all had been poor men and there were hundreds of

others that had done nearly as well. Besides, the claims were mostly

just being opened up and nobody really knew what more marvellous

finds might yet be made. Aboard the boat were all sorts of men from

all parts of the world but all alike were filled with high hopes.

Keen they were to try their luck in this big gamble where such

alluring prizes were going to fortune's favorites. So nobody was

looking for trouble. They had no lasting grievance against anyone

who didn't interfere with their one great object of getting to

Dawson. The only growling was at the slow progress the boat made,

but an "ocean greyhound" would not have been fast enough to satisfy

their eager haste.

It was a glorious trip in spite of all we had to put up with. Most

of us were seeing for the first time the beautiful scenery of the

western Canadian coast. Our boat sailed straight north for a

thousand miles in the Pacific yet with land always close in on both

sides. It is the most magnificent combination of ocean and mountain

scenery in the world. It is more majestic than the fiords of Norway,

nor can the Inland Sea of Japan have anything more lovely, and here

there is a full thousand miles of it. The ocean has inundated a

great mountain range. For days we sailed through winding channels

broad and narrow, and among giant mountain peaks that dwarfed our

boat. Sometimes the trees came right down to the water's edge, or we

steamed between precipitous cliffs where the tide-rip ran like a

mighty stream. As we got further north glaciers glistened within

rifle-shot and we could see plenty of little ice-bergs around us that

had toppled off into the water. It was mountain-climbing by

steam-boat!

Our voyage ended at Skagway, a typical "tough" frontier town that

boasted the last and worst "gun-man" of the west, Soapy Smith. But

that is "another story." I spent a night there and then took the

narrow-gauge railway over the White Pass to Log-Cabin, where I left

the train. From Log-Cabin, a lonely-looking, huddled-together group

of a dozen small log buildings, I was to start on my first trip on a

Northern trail in mid-winter. The Fan-tail Trail it was called,

running over these wind-swept summits seventy-five miles to Atlin on

Atlin Lake, one of the great lakes that feed the Yukon river. I was

to go with a dog-driver or "musher" named Stewart who had been

commissioned to bring in the new Sky Pilot "dead or alive." It was

afternoon before I reached Log-Cabin but Stewart decided not to wait

until next day but to start right away. He wanted to make it over

the summit, eighteen miles, to the Tepee, the first roadhouse on the

trail, and there put up for the night. This would break the journey

and enable us to do the rest of the trip to Atlin--sixty miles,

before nightfall the next day. It all sounded vague to me, seemed

indeed a very big proposition, but I agreed, being green and not

wishing to display my ignorance by discussing it. Moreover I was

young and ready to tackle anything. Stewart was experienced, knew

the trail, and was as hard as nails. He had a team of six dogs

hitched tandem to a sleigh about eight feet long and two feet wide on

which he had lashed a high built load of freight. I trotted along

bravely enough after Stewart and his dogs and for a few miles held my

own, but when we got out into the drifts I commenced to lag. He

tried me sitting on top of the load but that made it top-heavy and we

had several upsets. Twice we had to unlash the load, get the sleigh

up on the trail again and reload, all the time working in snow up to

our waists. It showed that plan worse than useless. Then he

suggested that I try if I could guide the sleigh holding the handles,

like plough-handles, that projected behind. To hold these gave me

help and it would have been fine if I had been able to keep the

sleigh on the trail, but that is learned only by long practice.

After several bad mishaps I had to give that up. Then Stewart told

me to go ahead on the trail and make the pace according to my

strength. But that wouldn't work either, for, in the drifts my feet

could not find or keep the trail, and the dogs following me were

continually getting into tangles in the deep snow. There was nothing

for me but to follow as best I could. When within five miles of the

Tepee we left the wind-swept plateaus and entered a forest. There

the trail slanted down to the gulch where our night's journey was to

end. Among the trees there were no drifts and while it was easier

going for me so it was for the dogs. They knew well enough where

they were, that there was rest and dinner for them at the end of that

five miles, and nothing could hold them. I was pretty well "all in"

but I struggled on trying to keep up until a sort of partial

unconsciousness came over me. I seemed to see only the two

moccasined heels of the musher ever disappearing before me. All I

seemed to know at last was to keep my eye on them as they slipped

away, away, ever away, from me into the darkness. Stewart could hear

me coming and of course didn't appreciate the situation. I hadn't

trail-sense enough to tell him to go on and I would follow slowly for

now the trail was comparatively easy. I heard the timber wolves

howling but there was no danger from them that winter as long as I

kept going. I know this now, but I was a "tenderfoot" then. Stewart

knew my brother John as the best musher on the Teslin trail and

thought, no doubt, that I'd be able to stick it without trouble.

When we got near enough to hear the dogs at the roadhouse howling,

ours quickened their pace and I was left hopelessly in the rear. I

grew faint and sick with my efforts, staggering along, running into

the trees and off the trail, to crawl back again and go a few yards

on hands and knees. At last, stumbling like a drunken man, I ran

into the roadhouse yard and right into my brother's arms! He had

reached the Tepee that night on his way out from Atlin to Log-Cabin.

I could eat no supper, slept not a wink all night, for every nerve

and muscle in my body seemed on fire, nor could I touch breakfast,

except a cup of tea.

As long as I live I shall never forget my first hours on the trail.

Even now I can close my eyes and see again those moccasined heels

slipping away from me into the snow-white darkness and feel again

something of the sick exhaustion of those last few gruelling miles.

In the morning our teams lined up again. My brother headed for

Log-Cabin, thence Vancouver, then Eastern Canada and home. I to

travel wearily on for another day towards a mining camp with all its

unknown problems for me as a green missionary. I was homesick,

anxious, and physically felt almost useless. Maybe I had some unshed

tears in my eyes as we stood together a moment before saying

good-bye, for John said, "Well, George, you're just at the present

moment the 'wateriest-looking' preacher I think I've ever seen." It

was "good medicine" for it made us all laugh and so we parted.

The rest of the trip was luckily easy for me. Stewart had left part

of his load at the Tepee and I was able to ride on the sleigh

whenever I wished. By noon my appetite asserted itself with

redoubled force. We stopped at the Half-Way House and had a

satisfying dinner. By the time we came within sight of Atlin, across

the five miles of frozen lake, the clouds had cleared away and I felt

the zest for adventure and love for my work, that had brought me

north, coming into their own again.

It was a week before I got the stiffness of that run over the

"Fan-Tail" out of my muscles. My memory will ever hold a clear-cut

and painful recollection of it.

_II_

_Down the Yukon on a Scow_

Sains-en-Gohelle is a neat little mining town not far from Lens where

the Canadian Camerons on several occasions put in their short "rest"

periods after their turn in the trenches.

I remember the place more distinctly because it was there I first

donned the kilts. The Quartermaster, Medical Officer, and Chaplain

were attached to the battalion for rations and duty only, and on such

matters as uniform were not under the authority of the battalion

commander. So I had never changed from the usual khaki dress. But

our new O.C., Lt.-Col. Urquhart, was keen to have us all in kilts so

that on parade we three would not look, as he put it, "like stray

sheep." The M.O. and the Q.M. (both named MacKenzie) were willing

enough. They were stout built fellows. I hesitated. I am of the

grey-hound type, built for speed not beauty, and feared that I would

look a spectacle in kilts. Indeed, I was apparently not alone in my

opinion for Major Tommie Taylor advised me if I put them on not to go

out too much when it was getting dusk. "The police might arrest you,

padre," he said, "for not having any visible means of support."

The O.C's wishes prevailed at last and Macpherson and I went over to

see Henderson, the regimental tailor. We picked out a good kilt from

the stores, my measurements were taken and next day I had a try on.

It took quite a while before everything was right and I was ready for

the road. I walked down the little village street that first time in

kilts with something the same unpleasantly self-conscious feeling you

have when in a dream you find yourself in a front seat at some public

gathering with only pyjamas on. I saw two French peasant girls

coming. I blushed all over and felt like "taking to the tall

timber." But I faced the music with a fearfully conscious bravado.

My fears and self-conceit fell in ruins together for they never gave

me so much as a glance as we passed. Of course I might have known

that "kilties" were a common sight to them and that they had seen

many better legs than mine!

At dinner I had Colonel Urquhart look me over and he decided I was

first-class (said so, anyway!), a little white about the knees but

the sun would mend that. I soon felt quite at home in the kilt on

parade and off it, and in the six months I wore them nothing happened

to justify Tommie Taylor's warning.

I recollect that one day during a "rest" I happened in to one of the

huts where they were discussing for the "nth" time the famous naval

battle of Jutland fought the year before. Someone had picked up an

old newspaper, a _Sunday Observer_, giving a critical account of the

whole engagement, and they were talking it over again. All were

agreed that it was a real victory for our Navy, for while the action

was costly and the German fleet was not destroyed, yet the glorious

fact remained that the Huns had had to "beat" it. We patted our Navy

on the back again in several different styles and gloated over the

return of the enemy's fleet to its compulsory hermitage at Kiel.

Then someone started to talk about the relative merits of land and

sea fighting from the standpoint of discomfort and danger to the

fighting man. "Smiler" McDermid was all for the Navy. "Those big

battleships are just floating fortified hotels," he said. "Every man

has his own bunk, blankets warm and dry, regular hours, good grub,

and no pack to carry. They don't average a fight a year and then the

scrap is over one way or the other in an hour or two. Besides

they're always getting in to port to coal up or be dry-docked and

then there is shore-leave every night in dear old Blighty. No long

marches, no mud, no trenches, dirt or vermin. Give me the Navy for a

cushy job every time." "Shorty" Montgomery didn't think it would be

as good as it sounded--"You would get fed up with the ship after a

few months. It would be your prison for weeks at a time. There

would be nothing to look at but the ocean, nowhere to go but walk

around your own limited quarters. On the other hand, we are

constantly moving from one front to another and in and out of the

line and seeing new towns and villages. It's a sort of free

Government tour through France and Flanders. Our life, although

hard, is not so monotonous nor the discipline so strict as it must be

in the Navy. In a scrap, if the ship goes down, you go with it,

while on land you have a fighting chance to save your own life

anyway."

Others had gathered in and took part. Preferences were pretty evenly

divided, the general opinion being that it would be more comfortable

to live on board a battleship but more agreeable to do our fighting

on land. The talk drifted to personal experiences on ships and when

I said that I had once been "a sailor before the mast" on the Yukon

"the fat was in the fire," and it was up to me to tell this story of

my first trip on a scow four hundred miles down the Yukon River to

Dawson. Before I started Clarke asked me to wait a few minutes till

he rounded up the fellows in the other huts. When I began our hut

was full.

* * * * *

I had been nine months in the Atlin Gold Camp at the head waters of

the Yukon and had gone out in the fall of 1900 to Kingston, where I

spent the winter. Next spring the command-request came from Dr.

Robertson to go to the Yukon again, this time to the Creeks back of

Dawson City. I had got a taste of the North in Atlin and I was eager

to go. I followed the usual route from Vancouver to Skagway, then

over the Pass to White Horse, a relay camp just below the rapids.

It was early in June, but the ice was not yet out of Lake Lebarge, an

expansion of the river some miles below White Horse. I had to wait

ten days before it was clear. This forced stay used up my funds so

that I couldn't pay steamboat fare. The only other method

practicable for me was to work my way down to Dawson by getting a job

as one of the "sweep-men" on a scow. I heard that Mike King had

three twenty-ton scows ready to load and was looking for a crew, so I

applied and was taken on as an "able-bodied seaman." There were

eighteen of us in all, including the cook who was a southern darky.

We were a queer mixture. You didn't ask too many questions of chance

acquaintances in those days but I know that in our crew there was a

doctor, a gambler, a sky-pilot, a Mormon, and a carpenter or two.

The others I couldn't figure out. My profession wasn't known at

first for I wore no clerical uniform. Sweater, rough pants, and

heavy boots served my turn, and the others were dressed much the

same. Each of us had to sign an agreement not to mutiny against the

pilot, to obey his orders, and to accept fifteen dollars at Dawson,

with our food on the way, as full payment for all we might have to

do, loading, unloading, and on the river. First we had to get our

cargo aboard, baled hay and sacks of oats, sixty tons in all, so the

first work I did in the Yukon was longshoring.

We were ready to go about ten in the morning and shoved out into the

current. We had no self-propelling power, simply floated with the

stream using "sweeps" to keep in the main channel. These "sweeps"

were about fourteen feet long, heavy, roughly-shaped oars, two at bow

and stern of each scow. We stood up to work them at the command of

our pilot. He was a good river-man from Ottawa, and I can hear him

yet singing out his orders as he looked ahead and with practiced eye

noted shoals or eddies that we could not see, or if we saw, did not

know their meaning. It was "Hit her to starboard forrard,"

"Starboard all," "Port all," and "Steady all," when we got into good

water again. We made a good get-away and soon were floating swiftly

and silently onward in mid-stream. This great river, five hundred

yards wide twelve hundred miles from its mouth, was brimful from the

spring thaw and the three big, heavily-laden scows lashed side by

side were carried along like a feather. You could feel the rhythmic

surge and heave of the mighty flood almost as if the swell of some

far-off ocean storm had crept up-stream to us. So in very truth a

great river has a throb of life in it, a pulse beat in unison with

the deep life of the Universe.

We didn't need to tie up at night because of darkness. There is no

darkness there in June and you could hear the singing all night long

of innumerable birds among the trees on either bank and see them

flying about. I wonder when they slept! On the scows we had an easy

task. It wasn't constant work. After getting safely past some shoal

or rocks we would pull our sweeps in and lie down beside them for

sleep or rest until aroused by the captain's voice. When we tied up

to the bank it was usually that all hands might be assured of a right

good sleep and not because of darkness or exhaustion.

By morning we had reached Lake Lebarge and were towed across to the

outlet where our scows were soon again in the grip of the river.

This part was called "Thirty-Mile," a rough, rapid, winding stretch,

dangerous even to steamboats, demanding skill and vigilance. Our

pilot took a long chance in risking the three scows abreast. We

nearly made it, but, when there was only another ten miles to go and

travelling at a tremendous pace, he gave the order to "put her to

starboard all" at one of the curves a trifle too late. We all saw

the danger, a jagged bank angling into the stream, and put every

ounce we had in us on the sweeps. It was in vain. The port scow

crashed against the rocks. We held for a few minutes, barely time to

get a line ashore and round a tree when the current caught us again

and commenced to swing us out into mid-stream. The tree bent, held a

moment, and then came tearing out by the roots. Things were looking

bad. Two sweeps were broken and we were circling round with the

broken scow filling fast. We had to try for another landing or it

would mean a complete wreck, with loss of the cargo and some of the

crew as well. The next ten minutes were extremely interesting, to

put it mildly, but fortune favoured us in the shape of a back eddy,

these strange currents that circle up-stream near shore. We worked

furiously towards it and at last made it although the momentum of the

almost unmanageable scows crashed us again on the rocks, there was no

strong current to drag us off. We got a line ashore to a good stout

tree and so made fast.

The injured scow was settling and the only thing to do was to unload

it as quickly as possible, and then seek to repair the damage done.

Otherwise the owners stood to lose heavily with hay and oats selling

at one hundred and twenty-five dollars a ton. We had a strenuous

time emptying that scow. First the twenty ton of fodder had to be

taken out a bale and a sack at a time, averaging dry over one hundred

pounds each, and every minute getting wet and wetter. They had to be

carried on our shoulders across a rickety make-shift gang-plank of

sweeps to the rock shore and there stacked up somehow. Next we

rigged up a Spanish windlass and dragged one corner of the scow into

the shallows and worked up to our knees in ice-cold water at what

seemed an endless task of baling. At last, with baling and the pull

of our windlass, we got the broken part clear so that it could be

mended.

Only two or three could work handily at that job so after a rest

several of us climbed the bank and went into the woods to explore.

There were evidently miles of good spruce timber on extensive mesas

running back to the low rolling mountains. The ground was sprinkled

with flowers among the blueberry and cranberry bushes and we found

several clusters of very pretty wild orchids. But what surprised us

most was to literally walk into numerous coveys of willow grouse.

They were so unafraid that we easily knocked over a good score of

them with sticks. When we got to the scows with our "poultry" our

story of the tame grouse would hardly have been believed if we hadn't

been able "to deliver the goods." When Sambo, our cook, saw us, his

eyes rolled and all his ivories were displayed in a full-sized grin

of welcome, and we surely did have a feast of fried grouse next day

in which "all hands and the cook" took leading parts.

During our absence one of the carpenters was nearly drowned. We

noticed when we returned that his face was scratched and that it had

an unusual thoughtful expression. In examining the extent of the

damage from the inside of the scow, to get a better look he poked his

head down the splintered hole, lost his balance and slipped through

to his waist, with his head under water and unable to move further in

or out or to shout for help. He would soon have drowned had not

someone happened to notice the frantic waving of his feet in the air.

One of them said they had seen dumb men talking with their hands but

they had never seen any man make such an eloquent speech with his

feet. When he was got out he had imbibed about all the Yukon river

he could accommodate.

It wasn't long, once the scow was made water-tight, before we had it

reloaded and were on our way again. After we passed the mouth of the

Hootalinqua (Indian for "Home of the Moose") we had very little work

to do. The river was so straight, broad, and full that our pilot

simply kept mid-stream and had no trouble. Shooting Five Finger

Rapids was exciting but not specially dangerous at high water if you

knew the right channel. We swept through into smooth water in fine

style. The men for'ard were soaked with spray but they soon dried

out in the plentiful sunshine pouring down on us from a cloudless sky.

Before noon on the third day we came in sight of the white-scarred

mountain-dome at the foot of which, unseen by us yet, was the famous

Mecca of Gold-hunters, Dawson City. In an hour or two we were

floating round the cliff in bad water where the Klondike river rushes

into the Yukon. A few minutes of hard work to keep our course and

not be carried away over to the far shore and then we were through

and everyone was pulling to edge in close to the right bank where our

journey was to end. Now we could lift our heads and pause to look

ashore and see this mushroom city of cabins and tents, and the

outlines of the hills and valleys behind it where fortunes were

hidden for the lucky ones. At last we found a place to tie up about

four scows out from land. There were dozens of scows and hundreds of

boats and rafts of every shape and sort, and the whole place,

waterfront and streets, stores and cabins, swarming with men night

and day. We got in about noon, had our dinner and then wandered

about in the crowds sight-seeing.

After supper we started to unload and worked all night at it. About

midnight we knocked off for an hour, had a bite to eat, and then went

over by the invitation of the owner of the cargo, a Dawson man, to

have drink at one of the many waterfront saloons. I was young,

inexperienced, and didn't want to go at all but "the bunch" wouldn't

leave me behind. So I went. We all lined up at the bar and were

asked in turn what we'd have. It was "whisky" all down the line till

it came to my turn and I confess to a strong desire to be "one of the

boys" and say the same. It was, I think, a "toss-up" what my

decision would be, but somehow I managed to say in a timid,

apologetic voice, "lemonade!" I had an idea that they would jeer at

me, for my order had to my ears, in those circumstances, a very

effeminate sound. I was surprised to hear one or two others after me

follow my lead and I didn't feel so much "out of it."

Six months afterwards I received a letter from a fellow I'd got

chummy with on the scows. His name was Dolan. He was young and

fair-haired and I remember we nick-named him "The Yellow Kid." He

had gone on down to Mastodon Gulch and had struck fair pay there. I

quote from his letter, which I still have after these twenty years.

"Some rich pay has been found here and the usual camp has sprung up

with road-houses and 'red-lights'. All night it surely is 'hell let

loose'. I've cut out the 'hootch'. It was getting me at White

Horse. Your call for lemonade at Dawson that night we landed showed

me that a fellow can be in with the boys and yet not drink." This

sounds to some of you perhaps a little "fishy," or like a

conventional Sunday School yarn. But, honest, that is just as it

happened and Dolan hadn't the faintest resemblance to a "sissy." It

simply showed me that the laws of influence work on the frontier the

same as elsewhere and that a man doesn't need to haul down the flag

of self-respect or principle to get into the right kind of good

fellowship. I needed just that lesson to put backbone into me for

the days of fierce temptation that were immediately before me.

We went back and finished our job as longshoremen, lined up for our

fifteen dollars and parted with handshakes and sincere good wishes

all round. I hunted up Dr. Grant's cabin and there got a right royal

welcome. We breakfasted together and then I rolled in to one of his

bunks for a sleep and heard nothing more until I was roused for

dinner.

_III._

_A Klondike Christmas Dinner_

All Canadian soldiers who got to France will remember what we called

"the hospital" at St. Pierre in front of Lens. This "hospital"

wasn't a hospital as we understand the word. It had been a

pretentious Roman Catholic children's school. Now it was a massive

ruin, a great heap of bricks, mortar, splintered beams and broken

tiling, with parts of the stout walls here and there left standing.

It became the customary battalion headquarters on that section of the

Lens front. It was only 300 yards away from No Man's Land and so was

convenient as a centre for directing operations. In the ruins a

cellar-door had been discovered by which entrance was obtained to a

vaulted brick tunnel running underground the whole length of the

building crossed by another at right angles. Further exploration had

found three small rooms above on the ground floor that could be used.

They were covered by such a depth of rubble that they were

practically secure from ordinary shell-fire. The O.C. and officers

took up their quarters in these rooms while the men attached occupied

the tunnels. It was dry there and warm, altho, dark and too low to

permit one to stand erect. This last was of little importance for

our usual attitude when off duty was a recumbent one! Altogether it

was one of the most comfortable "forward" headquarters I have ever

been in.

It happened that on Christmas Day, 1917 the 43rd and 116th were

holding the line on the 9th Brigade front. The 116th had established

its orderly-room in a cellar under a ruined brick house not far from

the hospital. I chanced to drop in about noon. They made me stay

for Christmas Dinner. The hospitality and good fellowship were

perfect. The dinner was a feast. We had soup, roast turkey with all

the fixings, vegetables, pie and pudding, tea and cake. We were

crowded closely but there was room to work our "sword-arms." The

turkey had been roasted and the whole dinner prepared in a corner of

the cellar-stairs by one of the men. How he managed to serve such a

delicious hot dinner is beyond me. These men that did the cooking in

the line for the different groups of officers were most of them

simply miracle-workers. They were continually doing impossible

things with army rations, shaping up appetising and varied meals

cooked under heart-breaking and back-breaking conditions on

primus-stove or brazier in a three-foot corner of dug-out or

pill-box. They did it regularly, kept their dishes clean, and their

tempers sweet. I salute them.

After dinner officers and men all crowded in as well as they could,

we sang a Christmas hymn and lifted our hearts in prayer to God.

Then I read the story of the birth of Jesus. As I read the familiar

words in those strange surroundings memories were stirred, and I

think we were all picturing scenes in the land across the sea. Other

days and the faces of loved ones came before us and we were back home

again and it was Christmas time in dear old Canada. I gave a simple

message in few words and then left. I spent the afternoon tramping

around the trenches seeing all the men I could to give them Christmas

greetings. The exercise was also almost a necessary preparation for

our own headquarters officers' dinner at six. There we had two roast

chickens and everything good to go with them, all cooked in his best

style by our "chef," Pte. Buchanan.

In the evening I went downstairs into the tunnels where I planned to

have a Christmas service with the men. Col. Urquhart and Major

Chandler came along. We were the only ones who had seats for we each

had a folded-up overcoat under us. The rest of the "congregation"

sat or lay on the floor of the narrow tunnels with candles here and

there for lights. I sat at the junction of the two tunnels with my

men behind, to right, left and in front of me. I read, prayed,

preached and pronounced the benediction sitting down, for the roof

was too low for standing. The only thing that was conventionally

"churchy" was the use of candles for lighting, and of course my

church was cruciform in its ground plan! But there was the Message,

there were reverent worshippers, and surely the Unseen Presence also,

and these are all you need anywhere to constitute a Christian Church.

After the benediction and when the two officers had disappeared up

the ladder, I was assailed by a chorus of voices with "tell us a

Yukon story," as the refrain. I stayed, sat down again, and there

with my men gathered round me in attentive silence I told my Klondike

story of a Christmas Day years ago. In fancy we travelled far from

France, forgot the war, and moved for a little while amid snow-clad

mountains and silent valleys in a vast and weirdly beautiful land. I

named my tale a Klondike Christmas Dinner.

* * * * *

It was in the winter of 1904. A week or two before Christmas, Jas.

McDougal had invited me to have dinner on Christmas Day with him and

his wife. Their cabin was half-way up the mountain side on the left

limit of Hunker Creek, six miles below Gold Bottom camp where I

lived. You need have no fear of having a "green Christmas" in the

Yukon with its eight months of solid winter with anywhere from 50 to

90 degrees of frost. It was "fifty below" that morning. Every

nail-head on the door of my cabin was white with frost. My little

stove had its work cut out, after I lit it and hopped back into my

bunk again, before it had warmed the cabin enough to make it

comfortable for dressing. I remember how that fall my top

bed-blankets had got frozen solid to the logs at the back of the bunk

while I was out on the trail one week and they never loosened up

until the Spring, so that my bed rarely got disarranged and was very

easily "made." When I took out some food for my dogs they crawled

out of their kennels stiff with lying for warmth all night in one

position. The exposed parts of head and shoulder were coated white

with frost from their breath. They bolted their breakfast and got

back quickly to the comfort of the nests they had left. The gulch

was filled with the white mist which developed in extreme cold. It

hid from my view the few cabins on the other side of the creek. Then

I came in to get my own breakfast. As a special treat I had sent to

Dawson twenty miles away for a pound of beefsteak for which I had to

pay a fabulous price in gold-dust. It was real beefsteak but it had

been "on the hoof" too long and it was like the camp, "tough and hard

to handle." Not so tough though as the steak McCrimmon told me he

had got in Dawson by rare good luck in 1897 when he had been feeding

on bacon and beans for months. "That bit of steak," he said, "lasted

me off and on for a week. I got away with it at last but it was a

long, hard fight. Honest, parson, that steak was so tough the first

time I tackled it I couldn't get my fork into the gravy."

Breakfast finished and the dishes washed I put on my parka over my

other clothes and with fur gauntlets and moccasins I was ready for

the road. The parka, by the way, is a loose-fitting, smock-like

garment that slips over the head and comes down below the knees and

has a hood. It is made of "bed-ticking" usually and so is light to

walk in but keeps the heat in and the cold out. First I went across

to Bill Lennox's cabin and asked him to feed my dogs at noon. Then I

hit the trail for McDougal's. I followed it along the bottom of the

narrow valley among miners' windlass-dumps and cabins. At most of

them I stepped in for a few minutes to wish my friends a Merry

Christmas and also to tell or hear the news. There was always

something of living interest to gossip about in those glorious,

exciting days. Men were finding fortunes ten or twenty feet below

the surface of the ground or even in the grass roots. Fortunes too

they were in the alluring form of gold-dust and nuggets, fascinating,

raw, yellow gold lying there just where God made and dropped it.

I've seen it so plentiful that it looked like a sack of corn-meal

spilled among the dirt. It drove men crazy, and how could they help

it. A wild, glorious gamble it was, with the thrill of adventure,

temptation, and novelty always present, and a wonderfully beautiful

land, new and interesting, as its setting.

It was towards noon before I turned out of the main trail, taking one

that wound its way up the mountain side for half a mile until it came

out on a flat stretch of snow. I was now above the frost-fog and

could see, a few hundred yards away, a small straight plume of white

smoke rising out of what looked like a big shapely snowdrift. The

trail ran straight to it and soon I could see a log or two of the

little cabin showing between the comb of snow hanging from the eaves

and the snow banked up against the base. The door was low and when

it opened in response to my knock I had to bow my head to get in. I

entered without ceremony for they were expecting me. I heard a

cheery voice with a Doric accent tell me to "come right in." I could

hear the voice but could see no one for with the opening of the door

the warm air meeting the cold immediately formed a veil of mist. But

it was only for a moment for in the North in winter you don't keep

the door open long. You either come in or get out, as the case may

be, without lingering on the threshold. But what a hearty welcome

when the door was shut behind me from McDougal and his good wife! No

delay either, no shuffling your feet in the hall until the maid takes

your card to mysterious regions in the inner chambers of the house,

and comes back to lead you into a waiting room where you may sit

down. Betimes the hostess graciously appears and with formal

greeting and conventional smile gives you a hand to shake that has on

occasions as much welcome in it as the tail of a dead fish. But this

welcome was real, immediate, and unmistakable. I was right at home

as soon as I stepped into the cabin for in so doing I came into the

parlour, dining room, bed-room, and kitchen. They hadn't even a "but

and a ben." There was something special about their welcome too,

even in the hospitable north. To the miners generally I was known as

the "sky-pilot," or "parson," or by my first or last name. But to

these two true-blue Presbyterians with their Scottish traditions I

was always "the minister," and so in my reception there was a respect

and courtesy that gave their greetings a rare fineness of tone.

Sometimes it is good for you to have people place you on a pedestal.

You usually try to measure up to expectations and in that country

self-respect was often the sheet-anchor that kept you from drifting

to the devil.

It was only a one-room cabin eight feet wide and twelve feet long,

log walls chinked with moss, rough board floor, roof of poles covered

with a foot of moss and a half foot of earth on the top. The only

place I could stand upright in it was under the ridge-pole. There

was one window of four panes, each about the size of a woman's

handkerchief. The glass was coated an inch deep in frost, but some

light came through, though not enough to dispense with candles.

Under the window was a table, simply a shelf two and a half feet wide

and three feet long. At the end of the cabin opposite the door was

the bed and to my left the stove, a sheet-iron one-chambered affair

with an oven in the pipe, a simple, small Klondike stove which was

not much to look at but capable of great things when rightly handled.

After taking off my parka it was to the stove I went first. It's a

habit you form in the North any way, but if you have a moustache, as

I had, the heavy icicles formed by your breath on a six-mile walk in

that extreme cold need to be thawed off near the stove, and that by a

gentle, careful process, the reason for this gentleness only

experience would make you appreciate. Once this is done there is no

need to sit near the stove. Indeed you can't get far away from it if

you stay in the cabin.

But I must describe my host and hostess. Mr. and Mrs. McDougal

looked more like brother and sister than husband and wife. They were

both small of stature and resembled each other. Both were well past

middle life. Their hair was growing grey. They had no children, but

his pet name for his little woman was "Grannie." McDougal had

graduated from a Scottish University and after his marriage decided

to leave the old land for America. They settled in California. As

the years went on they found themselves getting within sight of old

age without enough money laid by to save them from dependence on

others in their declining years. Then came the news of the gold

discoveries. It appealed to him for he saw in this adventure a

chance to lay the haunting spectre of poverty. Grannie stayed behind

in their pretty cottage home in the sunny south. A year or at most

two and they hoped he would be back with enough to put their minds at

ease. In 1897 he set out and after a trying journey reached the

Klondike in 1898. He managed to find and stake this shelf of

pay-gravel far up the mountain side. It had ages ago been part of

the bed of a stream. He worked with eager haste to get enough to go

back to his home and loved one. But the run of "pay" was poor and

uneven, water was scarce, and his "tailings" required continual

"cribbing" to keep from coming down on claims in the creek below. It

all meant enforced delay in the realization of his hopes. The

summers came and went with "clean-ups" good and bad but in the

aggregate not quite enough for the fulfilment of his plans. Grannie

was wearying for him and at last after six lonesome years she could

stand it no longer. She heard that there was a railway now over the

White Pass and steamboats on the river, and so in the Spring of 1903

she bravely set out for the North-land where she could be with her

man again. Nearly two years she had been among us, a dear little

lady with a heart so kind and pure and motherly that she became the

patron saint of our creek. Men fiercely tempted in those strange

days have found strength to save their souls because of the ministry

of Grannie's life and words.

But we were just sitting down to dinner at the little table in front

of the window. Now boys, I feel guilty in describing this dinner to

you here knowing the simplicity of your army fare, but perhaps it

will be a sort of painful pleasure for you to feast with us in

imagination. First I said a simple grace thanking God for our food

and asking a blessing upon it and us. We had soup to begin with,

thick hot Scotch broth it was, then roast ptarmigan, two each of

these plump, tasty little birds which the old man had shot from the

cabin door, native cranberry sauce, parsnips and potatoes. These

were good "cheechako spuds" shipped in from the South. We had

home-grown potatoes in the Klondike sometimes, but in a summer which

had one or two nights of nipping frost every month it was hard to

ripen them. They were usually small and green, and so "wet" that the

saying was "you had to wear a bathing-suit to eat them." Also of

course there was home-made bread and excellent tea.

But the dessert was the masterpiece of the meal. It was a good, hot,

Canadian blueberry pie about as big round as the top of a

piano-stool. It had a lid on it and the juice was bubbling out

through the little slits. It certainly looked delicious and it

tasted the same. It was cut into only four pieces. I maintain that

no self-respecting pie should be cut into more than four pieces

except perhaps in the case of a very large family. Grannie gave me

one piece, McDougal one, and took one herself. That left one over

and when I was through with my piece I was urged of course to have

the other piece. What could I do? What would you have done in my

place? Courtesy, inclination to oblige, and my palate all said take

it. My waist-band said, "Have a care," but it was awfully good pie

and I cleaned the plate!

Then McDougal lit his pipe. Grannie cleared up the table but left

the dishwashing until after I had gone as she wanted to share the

conversation. What a jolly three hours we had! Not a great deal

there to make us happy, you would say; a lonely log-cabin in a far

land and in the depth of an almost Arctic winter with no other human

habitation within sight or sound. Yet we forgot the fierce cold that

circled us, for the little place was comfortable, and better still

our hearts were warm with love and friendship. McDougal was finely

educated and had travelled, so the cabin was neither small nor

lonely. Its walls expanded and took in many guests. A goodly throng

was there for we wandered at will among a world of books and men. He

loved a good, clean joke, and let me tell you when we got going the

stories both grave and gay were worth your hearing.

Grannie was with us heart and soul in it all. Her face beamed with

cheeriness and good will. Sometimes, however, a far-away look came

into her brown eyes. I knew what it meant. She longed to get away

from the North and back again to the sunshine of her Southern home.

She was getting on in years and our extreme winters were very trying

to her. Whenever she got half a chance she would tell us something

about their home in California, the warm, bright summers, the lovely

gardens she and her neighbours had, and the flowers growing in

profusion, especially the roses charming the eye and filling the air

with their perfume.

Dear wee Grannie, she never lived to go back. One winter the brutal

cold gripped her and in spite of all we could do it took her life

away. It was a sad day when we placed her body in the grave on that

hillside. All the creek assembled to show their affection, and in

deep sorrow. It was her last request that she should be buried

there. She didn't want to be far from the man she loved even though

it meant a lonely grave in a lonely land. The Klondike is for

McDougal his homeland now. Fifteen years have passed since then and

he still lives in that cabin on the mountain slope where the woman he

loves best lies buried.

But there was no thought of sorrow that Christmas Day. Nowhere in

the world was there a merrier party, and when it came time for me to

go, (I had a wedding at Last Chance Roadhouse), it was with a feeling

that the cabin had been a sanctuary of friendship, happiness and

hospitality. When I went out into the darkness and the bitter cold I

was hardly conscious of it for my heart was aglow. All through these

years filled with many vivid experiences that day has kept its

brightness. Nor will it ever fade away but seems to shine more

clearly in the Halls of Memory as the years go by.

_IV._

_Some Klondike Weddings_

In the fall of 1916, a month or two across from Canada, I was posted

for duty at Shorncliffe Military Hospital, Major C. Reason of London,

Ont, commanding. I was billeted for a few weeks in a Sandgate

private house where the landlady used to do a little cheap

profiteering on our coal allowance. She gave me mostly cinders for

my grate, mixed with a modicum of coal. The room was altogether too

large for the fireplace, and anyway I was fresh from Canada and

wasn't inured to the rigorous climate that prevails inside English

homes in winter. I used to write my letters in bed. It was the only

way I could keep warm in my room for any length of time.

Major Reason soon arranged a place for me in the Officers' quarters

and there I was quite cosy and happy. The Medical Officers were

congenial and made my initiation into Army life a pleasant

experience. The style of men they were can be judged by the fact

that by common consent we decided to read aloud a portion of some

worth-while book four evenings a week in the Mess after dinner. We

chose "The Professor at the Breakfast Table" by Holmes, and that

winter we read it through and no one played truant. Is there another

Officers' Mess that has that record?

The Officers were all strangers to me except Captain Ferris of

Edmonton, President of the Mess. I knew him in my Toronto University

days in the class of '98, as "Buster Ferris," when he was one of the

scrimmage bunch on the Varsity Senior Rugby team. Those were the

days of "Biddy" Barr, Counsell, Hobbs and McArthur on the football

field, and Hamar Greenwood, MacKenzie King, Arthur Meighen, Tucker,

Billie Martin, and Eddie Beattie in the Literary Society. In 1894

the students boycotted all lectures because of the Senate's action in

regard to Tucker and Prof. Dale. We were all wild "Bolshies" for a

few weeks and those I have mentioned were our leaders. I wonder if

they still remember those revolutionary meetings in the Spadina Ave.

hall!

The Nursing Staff under Miss Urquhart gave their services in a

wholehearted spirit that was beyond praise. Indeed, throughout the

whole hospital staff "one unceasing purpose ran" and that was to

serve the patients in every possible way.

The hospital was finely located on a slope running down to the sea.

It looked south over the Straits of Dover, where we saw the

destroyers and transports crossing and recrossing continually, with

usually a "Silver Queen" or two floating overhead on the watch, their

sides glittering in the sunshine. On a clear day we could faintly

discern the cliffs of France where great deeds were being done, and

whither, some impatiently awaited day, it would be our good luck to

go, if only the war lasted long enough!

I quickly learned my duties in the hospital and liked them. We had

an Officers' hospital, also large surgical, venereal, and medical

divisions, usually full. There was work for me in great plenty and

variety. Apart from the regular parade services there were communion

services and informal evening meetings at convenient times and

places. Nearly every day I walked through all the wards and as it

seemed opportune would sit down by a bedside to chat, write a letter,

or get directions for my errands. How varied these requests were!

One wants me to look after his mail which he thinks is being held up

somewhere; some ask for a New Testament or a recent book; this one

has a roll of films to be developed; another wants me to find if a

certain battalion has arrived safely from Canada and where it is

stationed for his brother is in it; another asks me to buy two Xmas

cards, "real nice ones," one for his Mother and one for his

"next-best-girl." This one wants a money-order cashed; a homesick

fellow wonders if I could possibly get him one of his home-town

papers; another gives me his watch to be mended, or would like some

good stationery, or a fountain pen. In every case I promise to do

everything I can and all that the law allows.

Then there are those, always some, who are passing through the Valley

of the Shadow who want to hear again about Jesus and His Love and

Power. Nothing else will do. Also there are men, not many, who are

downhearted, sad, or bitter. You wonder indeed how certain of the

poor fellows can smile at all. Ask them how they are and they would

say through clenched teeth and pain-drawn lips, "All right." What

plan did I follow in dealing with these numerous needs? I had no

plan, except to place all my resources of body, mind and heart freely

at their disposal. You would have done just the same, you couldn't

help yourself. They repaid me a thousand-fold with welcomes and

friendship, intimate confidences, and marvellous stories of their

experiences.

Apropos of the variety of a chaplain's opportunities to serve, here's

a story that was current around the wards. It was told to me as a

good joke on the padre. A wounded Australian soldier had been taken

to one of the big Imperial hospitals in the north. None of his own

chaplains were near and so a fine old English padre took upon himself

to visit him. For days the chaplain's best efforts to get on

friendly footing failed. One evening, however, after a very

satisfying dinner at the Mess the clergyman felt he would make a

special try, and with his Bible in hand went into the ward and sat

down by the bedside. "Now, my boy," he said, "I am going to read you

a few verses of Scripture, and I hope they will impress you." The

soldier shammed sleep and said nothing, seeming as unresponsive as

ever. After a verse or two, however, he opened his eyes and sighed

deeply. The chaplain stopped reading and looked at him in pleased

surprise. He smiled and said, "Go on Sir, it is good." Thus

encouraged he read on through the whole chapter, hearing many

deep-drawn sighs of satisfaction from the bed. When he was finished

the soldier assured him the reading had done him a world of good, it

had been just what he needed to make things look brighter, and he

asked the chaplain to draw his chair up as close as he could and do

him the favor of reading it again. This was getting on with a

vengeance, and the padre was highly pleased with himself. When he

ended and was warmly thanked he was curious to know what there was in

the chapter that had benefited the soldier, and so asked him. "Well

Sir," said the Tommy, "You're a good sort, and I'll be honest with

you. It wasn't what you read that did me good, but all the same

you've made a hit with me. They've kept me on the 'water-wagon' ever

since I came to this hospital, and, Sir, your breath has been just

like a taste of heaven to me." Collapse of the padre!

My first attempt to tell Klondike stories in public overseas was in

an entertainment given by the Sergeants' Mess at which I had been

asked to be the speaker. That day I had married one of our

convalescent patients named Pte. Trainer to a Devonshire girl. My

thoughts were running in matrimonial channels and so I decided to

narrate some incidents connected with two or three of my Klondike

weddings.

* * * * *

Nearly sixty miles into the hills back of Dawson a new run of gold

had been discovered on the Dominion Creek flats, a district that

looked so unpromising to prospectors that it had been so far left

untouched. Some claims had been staked on it but no prospecting

done. Ole Tweet, a Norwegian, had taken over one of these claims as

all he could get out of a bad debt. He sank a hole on his ground and

found first-class pay. The inevitable stampede followed and soon

cabins, windlasses, and dumps commenced to show in all directions.

Tweet's cabin was the first to be built and so many stampeders had to

be sheltered, that he turned temporarily from his mining, got out

logs, and built a good roadhouse. It was a profitable business, for

he ran a clean place where you could get plenty to eat and a

comfortable bunk, and it became the popular resort of the miners. He

hired a cook, an unmarried woman of middle-age, whom he had met in

Dawson. She was a good woman in a country where women of the right

kind were scarce, so she soon had many admirers. Of all the suitors

for her hand there were two whom she favored, one a Scottish

Canadian, whose first name was Archie, and the other Ole Tweet. As

time went on she became worried because of her continued inability to

decide which of these two men she would marry. Both were equally

pleasing to her and they were both worthy fellows. She spoke to her

heart and no clear answer came back. Yet she knew she could not

rightly keep them in suspense any longer.

Sitting one summer day by her open window, wishing for something to

help her to come to a final decision, it chanced a little bird

alighted on the sill, looked up at her and said, "tweet, tweet!" The

bird's chirp settled it. Her difficulty was solved and she accepted

Ole Tweet. That was his real name, not "fixed" for the story. I

married them in that same roadhouse on Dominion.

It is said, but I cannot vouch for the truth of this, that Archie was

missing for a day or two after the engagement was announced, until

someone found him in his cabin with a number of little birds he had

caught and caged, trying to teach them to say, "Airchie, Airchie."

But it was too late!

One of my friends, (call him Jones if you like), a miner on Hunker

Creek, had been having such heavy clean-ups one Spring that he

determined to write to his sweetheart in Tacoma announcing his

intention of coming out before the freeze-up that fall to marry her.

Sensible woman that she was, she wrote back to tell him not to come.

She would come North instead, he could meet her in Dawson and so save

the expense of his trip out and back. She had her way, and I was

asked to tie the knot at the Third Avenue Hotel in Dawson. I shall

not attempt details of the affair, only to say that I never came so

nearly disgracing myself at any sacred ceremony as on this occasion.

The little room was crowded with guests, standing around the walls,

sitting on chairs, on one another's knees and on the floor, closing

in around the little six-foot space in the centre reserved for the

wedding party. The room grew very warm and close. I knew Jones was

nervous for he had privately and very earnestly pleaded with me to

"make it short." He and his best man had been standing in front of

me for full ten minutes expecting the bride and her attendant

momentarily. Ten minutes is a long time for a man to wait in such

circumstances and we were all on pins and needles. By the time the

door opened to admit the bride the atmosphere had become electrical,

and when in entering, her dress caught in the doorway and something

ripped, there were little outbursts of choked-back laughter, and I

could see poor Jones fidgetting more than ever. I hardly dared look

at his anxious face for it took me all my time to keep my voice at a

proper reverential pitch. As I went on I heard, whenever I paused, a

low, persistent, irritating noise that seemed in the room and yet was

hard to place. I thought it must be either the humming of the wind

through a window crack, or the distant buzz of a gasoline-saw making

fuel for Dawson's homes. I located it at last. It was the subdued

chattering of the bridegroom's teeth, as if he had a severe chill!

It is an absolute fact. It almost floored me for a moment and I

thought I could not go on. I paused to regain my composure. The

silence made the noise more distinct and explosive gurgles of

laughter here and there told me that others had noticed it. The

perspiration ran down my face in streams. There was nothing for it

but to struggle on, and in an abnormally sad voice I continued

without pause, until I came to the question asked of the groom, where

I had to stop for his reply. If Jones had stammered his answer I

could not have held in any longer, but would have burst into nervous

laughter. I am thankful to say he said "I will" with never a tremor,

and I was able to finish without disgracing "the cloth."

My last story is of a Creek wedding held in Last Chance Roadhouse on

Hunker. It was Christmas Day. I had just come down the mountain

trail from McDougal's where I had my Christmas Dinner. The wedding

party was waiting for me when I arrived. The roadhouse was a low,

log building about fifty feet long and twenty wide. There were no

partitions. The bar was at one end, the kitchen at the other, and

the part in between was a sort of "Anyman's Land." It was

dining-room, parlor, and gambling room in one. The bunkhouse was

separate. Things were "humming" from kitchen to bar, for remember it

was Christmas at a roadhouse on a main creek trail in the Klondike in

early days.

Not the most suitable place in the world for a wedding. For all

that, it went through in fine style. We stood up beside the table

and the place grew quiet. A blanket was hung up by the roadhouse man

in front of the bar--done because of his innate sense of the fitness

of things. There was no bothersome noise, except the opening and

closing of the doors as people came in and went out, and the

stage-whispering of a few men in the bar who had got too far along

with their celebrations for their fellows to control them completely.

The names of the bride and groom, their true names, were, Jensine

Kolken and John Peczu Kazinsky. She was a Norwegian Lutheran, he a

Hungarian Roman Catholic, married by a Canadian Presbyterian minister

in a Klondike roadhouse. Rather an unusual combination but it turned

out splendidly. They loved one another sincerely and all these years

have lived happily. They are prosperous and have several children.

After the wedding many toasts were drunk. I drank mine in

soda-water. Before the toasts Mrs. Kazinsky had gone to the kitchen

and was there busy about supper. She was the roadhouse cook and had

a lot of work to do preparing and serving meals to the holiday crowd.

I said good-bye, put on parka and mitts, and set out on my seven mile

tramp to Gold Bottom, where we had arranged a Camp Christmas Tree

Entertainment for that night.

It was cold, bitter cold, the roadhouse thermometer said 50 below

zero, and yet it was a grand night. We had seen no sun night or day

for weeks, but for all that it was clear as day with a light more

beautiful than that of the sun. The whole broad, snow-white gulch

around me was flooded with light. I looked up to the sky and there

my eyes beheld a wondrous sight, magnificent beyond imagining. The

dome of heaven, from east to west and from north to south, was filled

with an iridescent misty glory, glowing with strange light in which

gleamed lovely, delicate shades of green and gold. You could see

this luminous mist and yet see through it as if it weren't there at

all. It was almost uncanny, like seeing the invisible. In the midst

of it floated the moon at the full, ablaze with abundant light,

spilling it down in wasteful abundance mixed with the Aurora, coming

to the silent earth to change it to a glistening, white fairy-land of

unrivalled beauty. Far, far beyond in the clear depths of the

cloudless sky a thousand, thousand stars sparkled intensely like

well-set jewels. As I gazed the misty glory disappeared as if by

magic and in its place I saw great arrows of witching light shooting

in masses back and forth through the air.

I stood, as many times I did those winter nights, spellbound and

reverent in the presence of God's handiwork. Fancy took wing.

Perchance this fair light was from the shining pinions of angels as

they flew hither and thither on heavenly errands. Perchance it was

the gleaming from a myriad spears, as the armies of the Lord of Hosts

marched and countermarched in some Grand Parade. Or were these the

wild, elemental forces of nature playing at games that the Creator

had taught them and that they had played from all eternity?

Apart from these dreamings, I know I shall never see anything, with

my mortal eyes at least, so startlingly and mystically beautiful as

these canvasses which God hangs out night after night in the far

North for all to see who will but lift up their eyes to the heavens.

My talk was ended. Captain Ferris, my old friend, was in the chair

and after the usual courtesies he brought us down to "terra firma"

with a joke on the padre. "Now, Captain Pringle," he said, "those

were wonderful sights you saw after you left the wedding in that

roadhouse where you took only soda-water in the toasts. We know you

so well that you didn't need to tell us what you took. We know you

are a teetotaller. But, padre, for the sake of the strangers here,

and in view of the amazing things you saw after leaving the

roadhouse, say again to the crowd distinctly, that it was "only

soda-water." I "said it again," we all had a good laugh, and

dispersed.

_V._

_Wolf Dogs_

I had been with the 43rd about two months and during that time we had

been out in "rest" twice, once at Villers-au-bois and once at Camblin

l'Abbe. They were very interesting French towns, especially to one

who had always lived in western Canada, and although they had been

pretty badly knocked about by shelling they were havens of refuge,

rest, and comfort to us after the trenches. But my man Macpherson

wouldn't grow enthusiastic with me over these two places. "Wait till

you see Auchel, sir, that's the place for us. Why it's the French

'home' of the 43rd. That's a real town and fine people, and they

think there's no other battalion quite as good as ours." I heard the

town often spoken about in the same way by others and was delighted

when I learned one day that we were to move back to Auchel. I wasn't

disappointed in my expectations. The place had been a prosperous

farming village until the discovery of coal nearby had developed it

into a fine little town. It had retained much of its former

quaintness, and the mines had brought it in contact with newer ideas

by which it had benefited, and the town was vastly cleaner, better

lighted, had better stores, and was generally more up-to-date than

the old village had been.

As in all the many thousand French towns and villages, the Roman

Catholic church edifice was by far the largest building. At Auchel

it was located in the Market Square without any enclosing fence, and

on the weekly market-day when the Square was crowded with stalls many

of them would be placed against the buttresses of the church.

Auchel was unique among the towns we knew in France in having a neat

little Protestant Church as well, called "L'Église Evangelique." It

was a plain building seating perhaps 150 people and built after the

style of our own small country churches. On the wall at the right of

the platform was the verse in French, "Your iniquities have separated

between you and your God," and on the other side, "He was wounded for

our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities." High on the wall

behind the pulpit was inscribed the verse, "Dieu est Amour," and just

behind the speaker were the words, "God bless our Sunday School."

Their pastor gladly gave us the use of the church. We held our

Communion Service in it on Sunday and turned it into a reading-room

during the week.

It was in this Protestant church at our own sacrament service that

Capt. Jack Verner was baptised and took his first communion. He is

buried overseas.

It was in Auchel, when our battalion had been warned to be ready to

move at an hour's notice, that the padre gathered a dozen Camerons

who were not on duty, got a lorry and driver, and went off with his

men to a town twenty-five miles away to get a supply of books,

magazines, writing-paper and benches for his reading-room. I needed

the men to load and unload the equipment. We were away all

afternoon. When we came back, the adjutant, a conscientious Scot,

gave me what, from a military point of view I richly deserved, a

right good scolding. No orders to move had come, but if they had,

there would have been a serious reprimand coming to somebody. "All's

well that ends well." We didn't move for a full ten days and in the

meantime the men had their reading-room. Our parade services were

held in the ramshackle building which had been a cinema before the

war. The most inspiring part of our worship was the singing. There

was a piano to give us the right pitch and tempo, the congregation

did the rest. It would have thrilled you to stand on the platform

and hear those eight hundred men singing the grand old songs of Zion.

It was glorious. I was "lifted," and when the time came for the

sermon I couldn't help preaching with heart as well as voice. It

gave me an idea of the great loss we may sustain in over-modernizing

our church services. The congregation often doesn't sing, or sings

feebly. Its voice of praise is frequently drowned out by the

pipe-organ or choir. We obtrude these latter so much upon the eyes

and ears of the people that we seem almost to merit the observation

of a critical Roman Catholic, that he would rather bow before an

altar and a crucifix in church, than before a showy, loud-voiced

pipe-organ and choir, performing in front of an audience which

apparently took little part in the service except to listen.

It was in Auchel, too, that our battalion received its great gift

from the Women's Canadian Club of Seattle, Washington. On May 16th,

1918 the consignment reached us. It was, as far as I know, the

biggest present in kind that was ever given a Canadian battalion in

France. How such bulky stuff got through at all and in such prime

condition is a miracle that someone else will have to explain. But

there it was. Six big wooden boxes each half as large as a piano-box

and packed full. There were many kinds of things and practically

enough of every kind to give everybody in the battalion a good share

of it all. I had to have a parade (voluntary), and Macpherson and I

handed out the stuff, which we had unpacked and arranged, to the men

as they lined up. There were great quantities of fine candies in

bulk and in many small fancy boxes, lots of chewing-gum and tobacco,

hundreds of cigars and thousands of cigarettes. There were a score

of immense homemade fruit cakes. Then there was a generous abundance

of dates, raisins, figs, writing-paper, pipes, pencils,

fountain-pens, safety razors, snuff, vaseline, soap, tooth-brushes,

wash-rags, socks, sapadilla, handkerchiefs, tooth-paste,

shaving-soap, medicines, joke-books and many odds and ends in smaller

quantities. Most of the smaller parcels were tied up in pretty

ribbon and white tissue-paper with Christmas cards in them and

ornamented with Christmas labels, for the boxes had been due three

months before.

It was in Auchel that I talked to my men about northern dogs. One

evening we gathered in L'Église Evangelique and I told them some

stories about wolf-dogs I had known or handled.

* * * * *

One winter I heard that a group of men were prospecting on Duncan

Creek about two hundred miles farther out than my location at Gold

Bottom. I decided to take a month or two away from my regular

circuit on the creeks around me and pay a visit to these new

diggings, take along some reading matter, tell them the news, have

some services, and bring back their mail.

I needed a dog-team for the trip. My own dogs were not then old

enough for a long journey nor were they properly broken, and so I

picked up an odd dog here and there on the creek until I had a string

of six. They were of mixed sorts but all had been broken to the

sleigh, and their owners, who had no work for them, were glad to have

the dogs taken off their hands, fed and cared for.

I'm not going to speak of them all but only of three that had more

distinctive characters than the others.

When we travel with dogs in the North they are hitched up tandem

(usually) to a sleigh about two feet wide, a foot from the ground,

and eight or nine feet long, and are guided by voice and gestures

only. There are no reins. Of course you carry a black-snake whip to

urge the lazy ones on. This whip is about ten feet long with a heavy

loaded butt needed for protection if a refractory husky should turn

on you. The leader is the all-important dog. The others have only

to keep their traces taut and follow on, but the leader has to use

his head with all his wolf and dog senses and instincts. He must

find and keep on top of the old trail if there is one buried under

the drifts, know whether new ice is safe enough or not, and avoid the

serious peril of water under the snow, for at very low temperature,

with creek channels frozen solid, water is squeezed out and runs

under the snow. It of course freezes very quickly, but if you and

your dogs get into it, while still liquid in extreme cold weather, it

means an immediate camping to save your feet and those of your dogs,

and dry wood may not be near just then. This may well mean death,

for death soon comes to the crippled man or dog away from help in the

sub-arctic winter if he cannot build a fire. Your leader too, must

respond to all the few words of command. These are "Mush!", a

corruption, through the old French-Canadian Coureurs-du-bois of

"Marchez!"; "Whoa!", the whole team knows that welcome word; "Gee!"

to turn to the right, and "Haw!" to swing to the left.

Now this pick-up dog-team of mine was strange to me and I to them, so

the introduction was a fight or two until they knew I was boss. Then

I had to "learn" my dogs and place them in the string so that they

could work properly, and also see that they all did work until they

became a real team where each dog was doing his share.

I first picked on a big grey-muzzled malemute named Steal as a likely

fellow to lead. Dogs' names there don't usually indicate their

character, but his did. All malemutes are born thieves, some men

think. I don't agree, but in this case I had a thief by nature,

education, and name. He would break into your "cache" if it could be

done and steal what he fancied. His owner claimed he could read

labels on canned goods, for he would carry away bully-beef tins but

not canned-fruit. It was his keen nose, not his eyes of course, that

told him the difference. Once you knew of this failing it could be

easily guarded against on the trail. It would have been of little

moment if Steal had done his duty as leader. He knew all the tricks

of the trail and would have made a fine leader if he had tried to do

his bit. But I hadn't gone far before I realized that he wouldn't

work away from the whip. Running behind the eight-foot sleigh I had

it and the five dogs between me and Steal. His traces were always

trailing. He would rarely quicken his pace no matter how fiercely I

shouted "Mush on, you malemute!", nor for the crack of the whip. I

had to run along beside the team on the narrow trail, throwing them

partly off, before I could reach him with the whip. Then he would

dig in for a few hundred yards but soon commenced to slow down,

continually looking back to see if I were coming at him again. This

performance was demoralizing to team and driver, so some change had

to be made. I put a smaller dog named Mike in the lead and hitched

Steal up next the sleigh as my "wheel-dog." He worked there. He

knew perfectly that his game was up and put his shoulder against the

collar from that on. He was that sort of dog that works well under

the lash, although as a fact I never had to strike him now. I simply

cracked the whip above him if he showed signs of shirking and he

would get right in and pull, at the same time emitting a series of

howls that could not have been more woeful if he were being killed.

Anyway, I could see that the dogs in front took it as a warning of

the punishment awaiting the laggard and would pull so hard I would

sometimes have to slow them down.

Do not think I was cruel, or drove the dogs at their top speed

always. In the north there is more real kindness and expert care

used by dog-mushers in handling their wolf-dogs than in the way

pet-dogs and house-dogs are treated in our cities. A dog doesn't

appreciate having its nose kissed by human lips, and it is gross

unkindness to let unthinking impulse lead you to over-feed them, or

give them wrong food and make them sick and weak. It is cruel to

keep your dog chained up for days at a time alone in your back-yard,

varied only by taking him out for a walk usually on a leash. Our

trail-dogs are almost always healthy, hungry, and happy. Each day

they have, what every dog really needs and loves above all else, a

long run in the wilds with other dogs, satisfying the old, inborn,

"pack" instinct. They are carefully fed, not much in the morning,

perhaps a chunk each of dried salmon and the same at noon. A good

feed at dawn or during the day would mean a sick or "heavy" dog along

the trail. But at night the first meal prepared is for the dogs, a

good, big, hot feed of boiled rice, cornmeal, or oatmeal, with a

liberal allowance of fat bacon cut up and mixed in and perhaps a

couple of dog-biscuits each to crunch for dessert. Every toe of

every dog was examined daily and any sign of sensitiveness would mean

a salve, or, if expedient, a soft moccasin small enough to fit the

foot and protect it from the trail. The dogs were felt carefully all

over to see if they were sore anywhere. Too much depended on his

dogs on the trail for a man to be careless, or harsh, or ignorant, in

their handling.

Mike was a dandy little dog and served me well the whole journey

through. He wasn't as knowing on the trail as Steal and got us into

a tumble that might have had troublesome results. Travelling along a

ledge running about fifteen feet above the bottom of the gulch, he

took the team too near the edge and got on the "comb" of snow which

broke off with him and he dragged the whole team, sleigh, and driver

over the brink, to roll in a confused heap to the bottom. It took me

an hour, when daylight was precious, to get straightened out and

going again, but otherwise we were none the worse.

I found that Mike had one other fault. It took me two or three days

to notice it. He had the knack of keeping his traces straight but

not tight. He rarely pulled more than enough just to keep them from

sagging. No matter how hard the going Mike was only a "leader." He

never got down and pulled. I hesitate to criticize him, for at least

he did do his work as leader when without him I'd have been in a fix.

He did his own part, carried his own harness, and willingly. That's

a great, good quality, in dog or man. Often, though, I wished he

would forget being a leader, drop his dignity, and just be an

ordinary work-dog, especially in deep snow climbing a steep bank when

the other dogs and the driver were pulling and shoving with all our

strength to make the grade.

At Duncan I found a hearty welcome and spent ten days visiting around

the cabins. Before I started back an old-timer named Brodeur came

into camp limping behind his dogs. His axe had glanced while felling

a tree and gashed his foot. First-aid was given, but it was evident

that he should be taken to Dawson where he could get expert surgical

treatment. We arranged that he should come back with me. Before we

left he sold his dogs and sleigh for thirty-five ounces of gold,

about five hundred dollars. The dog he wouldn't sell was his leader,

named Shep, the best sleigh-dog I have ever seen in the north.

Brodeur refused to sell him for any money, not, however, because of

the dog's usefulness, that would have had a market value, but for

what you would call sentimental reasons. To put it simply, they

loved each other.

Of course there was only one place in the team for this king among

dogs and Mike now came second in the string. What a grand dog Shep

was! I can't tell you half his fine qualities. I don't know what

noble dog breed was mixed with the wolf in him, but he was master of

the team, in harness and out of it, from the start, and they seemed

to sense it and not resent it. The first night Steal tried to

dispute it by leaving his own pile of hot rice to snap some from the

far-side of Shep's. Before you could think Steal was down

half-buried in the snow yelling in his accustomed way, while Shep

nipped a few little slits in his ears. It wasn't a fight. It was

corrective punishment properly administered, in the same spirit in

which you spank your little boy. A dog can travel quite as well with

a few healthy cuts in his ears as without. Was it Shep's way of

boxing his ears? Shep was no bully, but he wouldn't allow any fights

among the dogs. He had, too, the rare art of "jollying" the team

along the trail. This was seen when the going had been hard all day

and the dogs were growing weary. Then he would talk to them as he

travelled in his whining, malemute way, and it would seem to brighten

them up. Perhaps he told them funny dog stories, or pictured the

joys of a good supper when they got to dry timber and camped.

Whatever your explanation, Shep was the cause, and the effect was

seen in a brisk and willing lot of dogs going strong at the close of

the day. Always he pulled his best. Whenever it was heavy sledding

he would get right down dog-fashion, with his belly close to the

trail, tongue hanging out, and do all he knew to keep things moving;

heart, lungs, muscles, toe-nails and teeth were all enlisted in his

effort to serve the man he loved who was riding under the robe in the

sleigh behind. How did he use his teeth? This way--Climbing up a

bank through the brush, making around an overflow on the creek, we

were nearly being stalled; Shep, not content with his usual efforts,

had managed to grip with his teeth a stout branch that stretched

conveniently near, and was using teeth and neck-muscles to add to his

pulling power! Do you wonder that Brodeur loved the dog? Shep never

knew the feel of the whip in punishment. At night when the team was

unharnessed his first move was to the sleigh where he shoved his

muzzle into the old man's hand and looked into his face asking him, I

suppose, if everything was going well.

We reached Dawson in good form and soon had Brodeur comfortably

located in the "Good Samaritan" hospital. Shep made his bed, the

first night, in the snow a few yards from the door, but he discovered

which window was Brodeur's, and he camped under it against the logs

of the hospital until his master was well. The foot mended rapidly

and soon the old trapper and his noble dog were back in the hills

again.

_VI._

_Lost on the Divide_

In March and April, 1918, the Canadians were lying along the low

ground beyond Vimy Ridge, facing the Germans who held the

Lens-Mericourt-Arleux front. The 43rd was entrenched about a mile

forward from the base of the Ridge. We had taken over from the

"Yorks and Lane's" who had done a lot of excellent engineering in the

sector they had been holding. The trenches had been deepened and

well drained. The dug-outs were numerous, large, and mostly safe.

The months of their tenure had been quiet, and everything was in good

repair. No Man's Land was wide, a quarter mile in places, smooth,

covered with grass, and inhabited by colonies of larks. Apparently

no raiding had been done, for that always brings some artillery

retaliation showing in parapets and barbed wire knocked about, and

ground torn by explosives.