The Untiring over-estimates his powers.--He is not particular
as to the nature of his dinner.--Toil and temper.--Farewell
to the Ominica.--Germansen.--The mining camp.--Celebrities.
In the struggle which it was our daily work to wage with Nature, whose
dead weight seemed to be bent on holding us back, the wear and tear of
the things of life had been considerable. Clothes we will say nothing
of--it is their function to go--but our rough life had told heavily
against less perishable articles. My aneroid was useless; my watch
and revolver slept somewhere beneath the Peace River; ammunition was
reduced to a few rounds, to be used only upon state occasions; but
to make up for every loss, and to counterbalance each misfortune,
Cerf-vola had passed in safety through rapid, wreck, and cañon. On
several occasions he had had narrow escapes. A fixed idea pervaded
his mind that he was a good hunting-dog; it was an utterly erroneous
impression upon his part, but he still clung to it with the tenacity I
have not unfrequently seen evinced by certain sporting individuals who
fancy themselves sportsmen; and as the impression sometimes leads its
human holders into strange situations, so also was Cerf-vola betrayed
into dangers by this unfortunate belief in his sporting propensities.
A very keen sense of smell enabled him to detect the presence of
bird or beast on shore or forest, but absence from the canoe usually
obliged him to swim the swollen river--a feat which resulted in his
being carried down sometimes out of sight on the impetuous torrent.
He swam slowly, but strongly, and his bushy tail seemed incapable of
submersion, remaining always upon the surface of the water. But about
this time an event occurred which by every rule of science should have
proved fatal to him.
One evening, it was the 16th of May, our larder being low, we camped
early at the mouth of a river called the Ozalinca. Beaver were
plentiful, fish were numerous; and while I went in quest of the former
with my gun, Jacques got ready a few large cod-hooks, with bait and
line. I pushed my way up the Ozalinca, and soon reached a beaver-dam.
Stealing cautiously to the edge, I saw one old veteran busily engaged
in the performance of his evening swim; every now and again he
disappeared beneath the crystal water, rising again to the surface to
look around him with evident satisfaction; presently a younger beaver
appeared, and began to nibble some green willows beneath the water.
They were a little too far to afford a certain shot, so I waited,
watching the antics of this strangest denizen of American rivers. All
at once the old veteran caught sight of me; his tail flogged loudly on
the water, and down he went out of sight. I waited a long time, but he
never reappeared, and I was obliged to content myself with a couple of
ducks ere night closed over the pond.
When I reached the camp on the Ominica River my three companions wore
long faces: the cause was soon told. Jacques had baited his hooks with
moose-meat; in an evil moment he had laid one of these upon the shore
ere casting it into the water; Cerf-vola had swallowed bait, hook,
and line in a single mouthful; the hook was no mere salmon-hook, but
one fully two inches in length, and of proportionate thickness--a
full-sized cod-hook. I turned to the dog; he lay close to my outspread
buffalo robe, watching the preparation of supper; he looked as unmoved
as though he had recently swallowed a bit of pemmican. One might have
fancied from his self-satisfied appearance that large fish-hooks had
ever formed a favourite article of food with him. I gave him the
greater portion of my supper, and he went to sleep as usual at my
head. I have merely to add that from that day to this he has been in
most excellent health. I can only attribute this fact to the quantity
of fish he had consumed in his career; a moderate computation would
allow him many thousand white fish and pike in the course of his life;
and as he only made one mouthful of a large white fish, the addition of
a fish-hook in the matter was of no consequence.
Passing the mouths of the Mesalinca and the Ozalinca--two wild,
swollen torrents flowing through a labyrinth of mountain peaks from
the north-west--we entered, on the third day after leaving the cañon,
the great central snowy range of North-British Columbia. The Ominica
was here only a slant of water, 100 yards in breadth; it poured down a
raging flood with a velocity difficult to picture.
We worked slowly on, now holding by the bushes that hung out from the
forest shore, now passing ropes around rocks and tree-stumps, and
dragging, poling, pushing, as best we could. The unusual toil brought
out the worst characteristics of my crew. Kalder worked like a horse
with a savage temper, and was in a chronic state of laying violent
hands upon the English miner, who, poor fellow, worked his best, but
failed to satisfy the expectations of the more athletic Indian. It was
no easy matter to keep the peace between them, and once, midway in a
rapid, my Indian leaped past me in the canoe, seized the unoffending
miner, and hurled him to the bottom of the boat. This was too much. I
caught hold of a paddle and quickly informed my red servitor that if
he did not instantly loosen his hold, my paddle would descend upon his
hot-tempered head; he cooled a little, and we resumed our upward way.
But for all this Kalder was a splendid fellow. In toil, in difficulty,
in danger, alone he was worth two ordinary men; and in camp no better
wild man lived to cut, to carry, or to cook; to pitch a tent, or
portage a load--no, not from Yukon to wild Hudson’s Bay.
On the night of the 19th of May we reached the mouth of the Wolverine
Creek, and camped at last by quiet water. We were worn and tired from
continuous toil. The ice-cold water in which we so frequently waded,
and which made the pole-handles like lumps of ice to the touch, had
begun to tell on hands and joints. Nevertheless, when at night the fire
dried our dripping clothes and warmed us again, the plate of pemmican
and cup of tea were relished, and we slept that sleep which is only
known when the pine-trees rock the tired wanderer into forgetfulness.
The last rapid was passed, and now before us lay a broad and gentle
current, lying in long serpentine bends amid lofty mountains. So, on
the morning of the 20th, we paddled up towards the mining camp with
easy strokes. Around us lay misty mountains, showing coldly through
cloud-rift and billowy vapour. The high altitude, to which by such
incessant labour we had worked our way, was plainly visible in the
backward vegetation. We were nearing the snow-line once more, but still
the sheltered valleys were bursting forth into green, and spring was
piercing the inmost fastness of these far-north hills.
And now I parted with the Ominica. It lay before us, far stretching to
the westward, amid cloud-capped cliffs and snowy peaks; known to the
gold-seeker for seventy miles yet higher and deeper into the land of
mountains, and found there to be still a large, strong river, flowing
from an unknown west.
And yet it is but one of that score of rivers which, 2500 miles from
these mountains, seek the Arctic Sea, through the mighty gateway of the
Mackenzie.
Late on the evening of the 20th of May I reached the mining camp of
Germansen, three miles south of the Ominica River. A queer place was
this mining camp of Germansen, the most northern and remote of all the
mines on the American continent.
Deep in the bottom of a valley, from whose steep sides the forest had
been cleared or burned off, stood some dozen or twenty well-built
wooden houses; a few figures moved in the dreary valley, ditches and
drains ran along the hill-sides, and here and there men were at work
with pick and shovel in the varied toil of gold-mining.
The history of Germansen Creek had been the history of a thousand
other creeks on the western continent. A roving miner had struck the
glittering pebbles; the news had spread. From Montana, from Idaho, from
California, Oregon, and Cariboo, men had flocked to this new find in
the far north. In 1871, 1200 miners had forced their way through almost
incredible hardships to the new field; provisions reached a fabulous
price; flour and pork sold at six and seven shillings a pound! The
innumerable sharks that prey upon the miner flocked in to reap the
harvest; some struck the golden dust, but the majority lost everything,
and for about the twentieth time in their lives became “dead broke;”
little was known of the severity of the season, and many protracted the
time of their departure for more southern winter quarters. Suddenly,
on their return march, the winter broke; horses and mules perished
miserably along the forest trail. At length the Frazer River was
reached, a few canoes were obtained, but the ice was fast filling in
the river. The men crowded into the canoes till they were filled to
the edge; three wretched miners could find no room; they were left on
the shore to their fate; their comrades pushed away. Two or three days
later the three castaways were found frozen stiff on the inhospitable
shore.
The next summer saw fewer miners at the Camp, and this summer saw
fewer still; but if to-morrow another strike were to be made 500 miles
to the north of this remote Camp, hundreds would rush to it, caring
little whether their bones were left to mark the long forest trail. The
miner has ever got his dream of an El Dorado fresh and sanguine. No
disaster, no repeated failure will discourage him. His golden paradise
is always “away up” in some half-inaccessible spot in a wilderness of
mountains. Nothing daunts him in this wild search of his. Mountains,
rivers, cañons are the enemies he is constantly wrestling with. Nature
has locked her treasures of gold and silver in deep mountain caverns,
as though she would keep them from the daring men who strive to rob
her. But she cannot save them. When one sees this wonderful labour,
this delving into the bowels of rock and shingle, this turning and
twisting of river channel, and sluicing and dredging and blasting,
going on in these strange out-of-the-way places, the thought occurs,
if but the tenth part of this toil were expended by these men in the
ordinary avocations of life, they would all be rich or comfortable.
The miner cannot settle down--at least for a long time--the life has a
strange fascination for him; he will tell you that for one haul he has
drawn twenty blanks; he will tell you that he has lost more money in
one night at “faro,” or “poker,” than would suffice to have kept him
decently for five years; he will tell you that he has frequently to put
two dollars into the ground in order to dig one dollar out of it, and
yet he cannot give up the wild, free life. He is emphatically a queer
genius; and no matter what his country, his characteristics are the
same. It would be impossible to discipline him, yet I think that, were
he amenable to even a semblance of restraint and command, 40,000 miners
might conquer a continent.
His knowledge of words is peculiar; he has a thousand phrases of his
own which it would be needless to follow him into. “Don’t prevaricate,
sir!” thundered a British Columbian judge to a witness from the mines,
“don’t prevaricate, sir!” “Can’t help it, judge,” answered the miner.
“Ever since I got a kick in the mouth from a mule that knocked my
teeth out, I prevaricate a good deal.”
In the bottom of the valley, between the wooden houses and the rushing
creek of Germansen, I pitched my tent for a short time, and in the
course of a few days had the honour of becoming acquainted, either
personally or by reputation, with Doe English, Dancing Bill, Black
Jack, Dirty-faced Pete, Ned Walsh, Rufus Sylvester, and several others
among the leading “boys” of the northern mining country. I found them
men who under the rough garb of mountain miners had a large and varied
experience in wild life and adventure--generous, free-hearted fellows
too, who in the race for gold had not thrown off as dead weight, half
as much of human kindness as many of their brothers, who, on a more
civilized course, start for the same race too.