POO-BAH!
During the days of his convalescence John Berwick spent many hours
roaming about the bluff, indulging his passion for the sights of Nature,
and thinking--quite without panic now--of the infinite problems
associated with human existence in an universe governed by an
inscrutable Providence. Much of his thought, too, naturally turned to
the girl he had left behind him. His illness and these after-thoughts
had taught him lessons, and given him hopes.
In the steep ascent, one day, of the bench on the south side of the
Klondike, John came up with a tottering figure bent under a heavy load.
The man was old, and the temptation came to John--invalid as he was--to
offer to relieve him of the burden for a bit; when the man sat down to
rest, and wiped away the perspiration with a much-soiled red
handkerchief. John sat down near him; but for a time he paid no
attention to him, or to any of the passers-by.
"It's a nice day," John began.
"It's only chechachoes that talk about the weather," was the blunt
reply.
"I'm a chechacho."
"Don't have to tell me that: what in hell are you fellows coming here
for?"
"To stake a claim and get rich."
"Poo-Bah will get it!"
"Poo-Bah--Poo-Bah of the _Mikado_?"
"This ain't the Mikie-do's Poo-Bah--this is the Octopus' Poo-Bah! He's
got the Mikie-do and the Czar of Russia skinned to death. Poo-Bah comes
pretty near running things in Dawson. If you stake a claim, and go to
Poo-Bah and give him half interest, you may get a grant for it--that is,
if Poo-Bah can't find any person to run it for him! Then, again, he may
think he wants it all himself--in which case you can go to hell! If you
wants to start manufacturing hootch, just go to Poo-Bah, and he will fix
things so as you won't be touched."
"But are you sure? This is British territory."
"British!--nothing: this is the Octopus' country; and him and Poo-Bah is
old friends! Fellows tell me Poo-Bah helped elect the Octopus back east
to Parliament--or whatever you Britishers call your Government lay-out.
Look at this royalty they are putting on our gold!--how much of this
here royalty ever gets to Queen Victoria? No, sir; I bet Sir Wilfrid
Laurier never gets his hands on one-half of what's robbed from us poor
devils."
"But the expenses of Government must be raised, and you must admit that
you have good law and order, and that you never get held up."
"Held up! Law and order! Hell! What's the difference between being held
up by fellows like the Soapy Smith gang, or being held up by the
blooming yellow-legs? You have some chance of getting clear of Soapy
Smith--and it's only a matter of time till some fellow takes a shot at
him; but you can't get past the yellow-legs: they won't stand for no
bluffs."
"The Government will build roads."
"Roads! Then why ain't they building them? No; the Government says
Poo-Bah will build them, and has given Poo-Bah a franchise to charge
fellows going up Bonanza Creek trail twenty-five cents apiece, and for
each pack-animal two dollars and a half. Poo-Bah started to build the
road all right; but he quit just as soon as he got the toll-gate up!
What do you think I'm climbing this two thousand feet for?--mountain
scenery, same as you're doing? No, it's a mighty sight easier to climb
this blooming hill than to wade through Poo-Bah's bog-holes. The Bonanza
trail makes 'the slough of despond' look like the rocky road to Dublin!
But say! I must be getting. You're away from the land of dooks and
earls, and kings and queens, and all that brand of cattle; and you'd
better turn white man with a new set of notions in your head."
"Let me carry your load a little way."
"Go on! I ain't dead yet! It serves me right for getting caught in a
country ruled by a Government my fathers bled to get rid of, about the
time of the Boston tea-party." The old man struggled into his harness
again. "God! I wished I was back again under Old Glory."
John shrank under the insult. Tears came to his eyes. What soul
cherishing the honour of British institutions would not have protested
at such a state of things as his eyes were daily being opened to?
Sadness came over him. Here was a great injustice, and sordid, festering
corruption, inspired by greed. He gritted his teeth--and a resolve came
to him. If he found these stories true he would strive, somehow, anyhow,
to overthrow Poo-Bah and his _clique_ of corruption.
After a while John again came up to the old man resting by the side of
the trail, who blurted out, "I thought I had given you enough to send
you out of the country!"
"Then you didn't. Tell me this, are you aware of any case of a miner
being cheated out of his claim?"
"Yes, lots. There's my own, for one."
"Where and how was that?"
The old man was not disinclined to talk.
"Well, stranger, it was this way. Me and my partner staked a claim on
French Hill, and we was sure first on the ground. We went to Dawson and
gave a lawyer a hundred dollars to apply for the claim for us. They told
him that we must have a survey before they would give the grant. Well,
we gave a surveyor two hundred dollars to survey the claim for us, and
we went out there with him. When we got there with the surveyor we found
a dozen fellows with rockers taking the rich pay off the rim rock. It
was three weeks before we got our grant. The Gold Commissioner's gang
took $30,000 out of it, and now we have the leavings, not worth much! If
we hadn't thought of getting the lawyer, we wouldn't have even got the
leavings!"
That was enough for John. He arose and pushed through the bushes on the
opposite side of the trail, walking in the general direction of the
hill-top. He desired solitude that he might think.
He felt fiercely angry at these wrongs. They were intolerable; they
struck at the simplest principles of human liberty. Here were men
enduring privations which sometimes caused permanent bodily harm--John
remembered the snow-blinded traveller of Cape Le Berge--only to have the
fruits of their strenuous endeavour mercilessly taken from them!
Before he could control his indignation he had wandered miles from
Dawson, and gained the summit of the hill, where he sat to eat his
luncheon.
To the eastward was the valley of the great gold-bearing creek, Bonanza.
He noted the great rounded ridges, which, with their intervening
valleys, ran along the slopes to its bottom. He marvelled at the
softness and beauty of their lines, each of which ended in a
gracefully-rounded head, standing sentinel over the creek. And well they
might appear to guard its riches, for those heads contained immense
deposits of bench gravels that were to cause extraordinary sensation in
the days to come.
Finishing his lunch, he was idly working at the moss with his heels when
he noticed that the rock beneath was white as milk. He examined it
closely; yes, it was quartz, the parent rock of gold.
Immediately the instinct of the miner was aroused. He took a piece of
loose rock and easily broke off several pieces. These he put into his
pockets, and set out eagerly for home. His mind was free of politics
now! A tinge of palest green was on the hills; this one day's sun had
burst a myriad of buds upon a million poplars. Yes, it was summer!
George and Hugh, coming in soon after John's return, were shown the
find, and all was enthusiasm.
"Pretty hungry-looking stuff," was Hugh's comment on close inspection.
"How will you get water up there for your stamp-mill?"
John found an answer, as he remembered the long, gently-reclining ridge
to Bonanza Creek with its flanking valleys on either side.
"I'll take my ore to Bonanza Creek."
"But they won't let you take the water out of Bonanza Creek."
"Perhaps not; but they will let me have the water out of the tributaries
if I can turn it back before it reaches Bonanza Creek."
On the morrow George and he visited the famous--or infamous--seat of the
Head over the mining industry. They found the Gold Commissioner's office
a log building of no great dimensions near the police-barracks. A
waiting crowd was lined before the door. A policeman standing near the
office entrance directed John, who wished merely to get a copy of the
regulations governing the taking up of quartz claims, to ask at the
wicket inside.
He entered. As he stood waiting his turn he overheard a miner, evidently
a Scandinavian, applying for a claim.
"This claim is already applied for," said the official.
"But, mister, there vos not a stake on it ven I staked it."
"I don't care! It is applied for. Next!"
"Can't I see the Commissioner?"
"No; he's busy. Next!"
"Say! mister, this is my claim."
"Next!"
Poor Ole was shoved aside by the crowd. He had waited through the weary
night to gain a hearing, and now ethereal castles came toppling down!
As soon as John had obtained a copy of the regulations he and George
Bruce set off to the hill of promise, each to take up a quartz claim.
They staked their claims, and then followed the ridge down to Bonanza
Creek. They found that the rounded end of the ridge overlooking the
creek was admirably suited as the site of a quartz mill.
"George," said his companion, "I don't think my right will be of any
other use to me. I shall take up a claim here under the placer laws, and
I think you had better do the same." So each of them staked a placer
claim.
Instead of returning by the way they had come, the inclination to return
by the creek trail was too strong to be resisted. They would be forced
to wade through numerous bog-holes; but what of that? Down the hill they
scrambled, and came to a sudden halt amid the full activity of some
mining operations. A gang of men were working over a line of
sluice-boxes, with a big fellow, standing on a pile of rocks,
superintending. The water was shut off from running through the sluices.
The men had lifted the riffles out of the dump-box, and the gleam of
nuggets and dust was plainly visible.
"It looks good."
"It ought to be, after three days' shovelling in on discovery," answered
the superintendent, who flashed a keen glance at the new-comers.
"Is this discovery?"
"That's what I endeavoured to enunciate."
"Do you object to our watching the clean-up?"
"Not that I knows of. I s'pose the gold ain't going to evaporate 'cause
you look at it. But where do you come from? Are you miners?"
"We are."
"Do you want a job? Give you ten dollars and board."
"No, we have just staked claims--quartz claims on the ridge up
there--and intend working them."
"Quartz! this country is full of quartz. There ain't nothing in it; see
all the quartz in the wash here?" and the foreman pointed to the white
pebbles among the rocks on which he was standing. "You can crack these
all day and never find a colour."
"Where does the gold come from if it does not come from the quartz?"
"Where does it come from?--just grows, I guess. Gold is like potatoes in
this country. It was over there, just under the bluff, that Carmack made
discovery. He found a bunch of high-grade pay in the creek bottom and
worked it out; and then he had to go twenty feet through the muck to
bed-rock before he got the real thing. Now, how did the gold get on top
of the muck where Carmack first found it? There has not been a
good-sized colour found above bed-rock on any other claim on the creek.
I tell you if you try to figure where gold in this country comes from,
you'll go bughouse before you find out. Gold is where you find it. It's
a blooming conundrum. Take me; I came up here and could have staked in
on Eldorado. Well, I couldn't find a colour in the creek; but what I
could see was a sign stuck up readin', 'This creek is reserved for
Swedes and Moose.' Now, I weren't a Swede, and I sure weren't a Moose!
So I passes her up. What happens? Why, a lot of fools take her up and
she's the richest ground in the country. Nice, ain't it!--and me working
for wages?"
"Well, how do you know I won't strike it rich on my quartz claim?"
"You may, stranger, you may; I've given up calling people fools for
having different notions from me. Hope you will!"
They found the trail as bad as it had been described to them. It did
indeed make the "slough of despond" look like the rocky road to Dublin.
Few men they met but had some humorous remark to make; and there is
probably no toil greater than wading, with pack on back, from stump to
stone, from stone to stump, in the course of that desperate journey.
Humour was the saving grace; it was an effective barrier against
despair. Occasionally men were met, blaspheming, cursing the land, the
gold, the Government, but generally it was humour which made the path
passable.
A led horse waded into a bog-hole. He stopped, and seemed to hesitate.
"Throw a stick at him," shouted the man leading him to another who
walked behind. A stick was thrown. The horse plunged, and the bog being
deeper than the men had imagined, was more in the mire. "Keep him going,
it's the only way to save him," was shouted. Stick after stick was
hurled at the struggling animal, which became more and more bemired. It
gave up the struggle. The report of a rifle soon after told that the
horse was dead.