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