the end.
SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES.
BY KIRK MUNROE.
CHAPTER XXI.
A YUKON MINING CAMP.
The supper provided by the hospitable miners was a good one, and heartily did our travellers enjoy it; but while they are appeasing the extraordinary appetites that they acquired somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness, let us take a look at this most northern of American mining camps.
To begin with, although it is at the junction of Forty Mile Creek and the Yukon River, it is not in Alaska, but about twenty miles east of the boundary in Northwest Territory, which is one of the sub-divisions of Canada. The most recent name of this camp is "Mitchell," but all old Yukon miners know it as Camp Forty Mile. At the time of Phil Ryder's visit it contained nearly two hundred log cabins, two stores, including the one that he established in the name of his friend, Gerald Hamer, two saloons, both of which were closed for the season, and a small cigar factory. Although the winter population was only about three hundred, in summer-time it is much larger, as many of the miners come out in the fall and return before the 15th of June, at which date, according to Yukon mining law, every man owning a claim must be on the ground or it may be "jumped."
Forty Mile is what is known as a placer camp, which means that its gold is found in minute particles or "dust" in soft earth, from which it can be washed in sluices or rockers. Into one of these a stream of water is turned that sweeps away all the dirt and gravel, allowing the heavier gold to sink to the bottom, where it is caught and held by cross-bars or "riffles."
Although gold has been discovered at many points along the Yukon and its branches, the deposit at Forty Mile is the richest yet worked, and has paid as high as $300 to a man for a single day's labor; $12,000 worth of gold was cleared by one miner in a three months' season, and a $500 nugget has been found; but most of the miners are content if they can make "ounce wages," or sixteen dollars per day, while the average for the camp is not over $8 per day during the short season of that arctic region.
Sluices can only be worked during three or four months of summer-time; then come the terrible eight or nine months of winter when the mercury thinks nothing of dropping to 60° or 70° below zero, and the whole world seems made of ice. Strange as it may appear, the summer weather of this region is very hot, 85° in the shade, and 112° in the sun being frequently reached by the mercury. During the summer months, too, the entire Yukon Valley is as terribly infested with mosquitoes as is any mangrove swamp of the tropics. Thus the hardy miner who penetrates it in his search for gold is made to suffer from one cause or another during every month of the year.
In spite of the summer heat the ground never thaws to a depth of more than five or six feet, below which it is solidly frozen beyond any point yet reached by digging. Under the dense covering of moss, six to eighteen inches thick, by which the greater part of Alaska is overspread, it does not thaw more than a few inches. Consequently the most important item of a Yukon miner's winter work is the stripping of this moss from his claim in order that next summer's sun may have a chance to thaw it to working depth.
There were no women nor children at Forty Mile, and there were few amusements, but there was plenty of hard work in both summer when the sun hardly sets at all, and in the winter when he barely shows his face above the southern horizon. Besides the laborious task of moss-stripping, the miner must saw out by hand all lumber for sluices and rockers. He must build his own cabin and fashion its rude furniture, besides doing all of his own house-work and cooking. He also expects to do a certain amount of hunting and trapping during the winter months, so that his time, unless he be very lazy, is fully occupied. But lazy men are not apt to reach Forty Mile, for the journey from Juneau, in southern Alaska, which is the largest city in the Territory, as well as the nearest outfitting point for the diggings, is so filled with peril and the roughest kind of hard work as to deter any but men of the most determined energy.
At Juneau, Yukon travellers provide themselves with an outfit of snow-shoes, sledges, tents, fur clothing, provisions, and whatever else seems to them necessary. Starting in the early spring they proceed by boat to the Chilkat country, seventy miles distant, and to the head of Chilkoot Inlet. From there they set forth on a terrible mountain climb over snow many feet in depth, where they are in constant danger from avalanches, and cross the coast range by a pass that rises 3000 feet above timber line. On the opposite side they strike the head-waters of the Yukon, which they follow through a series of six lakes, sledging over their still ice-bound waters, and rafting down their connecting links, in which are seething rapids, dark gorges, and roaring cañons, around which all goods must be carried on men's backs. After some 200 miles of these difficulties have been passed, trees must be felled, lumber sawed, cut, and boats constructed for the remaining 500 miles of the weary journey.
As it would not pay to transport freight by this route, all provisions and other supplies for the diggings are shipped from San Francisco by sea to St. Michaels, where they are transferred to small river steamers like the Chimo, and so after being many months on the way, finally reach their destination. By this time their value has become so enhanced or "enchanted," as the miners say, that Phil Ryder found flour selling for $30 per barrel, bacon at 35 cents per pound, beans at 25 cents per pound, canned fruit at 60 cents per pound, coarse flannel shirts at $8 each, rubber boots at $18 per pair, and all other goods at proportionate rates. Even sledge dogs such as he had purchased at Anvik for $5 or $6 each were here valued at $25 apiece.
In view of these facts it is no wonder that the news of another steamer on the river bringing a saw-mill to supply them with lumber, machinery with which to work the frozen but gold-laden earth of their claims, and a large stock of goods to be sold at about one-half the prevailing prices, created a very pleasant excitement among the miners of that wide-awake camp.
On the day following his arrival, and after a careful survey of the situation, Phil rented the largest building in the place, paying one month's rent in advance, and giving its owner an order on Gerald Hamer for the balance until the time of the Chimo's arrival. This building had been used as a saloon, and was conveniently located close by the steamboat landing facing the river. Into it the sledge party moved all their belongings, including the seventeen wolf-skins, which now formed rugs for their floor as well as coverings for several split-log benches. Serge and the two Indians at once started up the river with the sledges for a supply of firewood, which was a precious article in Forty Mile at that time, leaving Phil and Jalap Coombs to clean the new quarters and render them habitable; while the latter, with a sailor's neat deftness, attended to this work, Phil busied himself with a pot of black paint and a long breadth of cotton cloth. At this he labored with such diligence that in an hour's time a huge sign appeared above the entrance to the building and stretched across its entire front. On it, in letters so large that they could be plainly read from the river, was painted the legend, "Yukon Trading Company, Gerald Hamer, Agent."
This promise of increased business facilities was greeted by a round of hearty cheers from a group of miners who had assembled to witness the raising of the new sign, and when Jalap Coombs finished tacking up his end one of these stepped up to him with a keen scrutiny. Finally he said. "Stranger, may I be so bold as to ask who was the best friend you ever had?"
"Sartain you may," replied the sailorman, "seeing as I'm allers proud to mention the name of old Kite Roberson, and likewise claim him for a friend."
"WHY, MATEY, DON'T YOU REMEMBER THE OLD BRIG 'BETSY?"
"I thought so!" cried the delighted miner, thrusting out a great hairy paw. "I thought I couldn't be mistook in that figger-head, and I knowed if you was the same old Jalap I took ye to be that Kite Roberson wouldn't be fur off. Why, matey, don't you remember the old brig Betsy? Have you clean forgot Skiff Bettens?"
"Him that went into the hold and found the fire and put it out, and was drug up so nigh dead from smoke that he didn't breathe nateral agin fur a week? Not much I hain't forgot him, and I'm nigh about as glad to see him as if he were old Kite hisself!" exclaimed Jalap Coombs, in joyous tones. Then he introduced Mr. Skiff Betten, ex-sailor and now Yukon miner, to Phil, and pulled him into the house, and there was no more work to be got out of Jalap Coombs that day.
Phil had also been recognized. That is, Mr. Platt Riley had asked him if he were the son of his father, and when Phil admitted the relationship, told him that he had a father to be proud of every minute of his life. Didn't he know? for hadn't he, Platt Riley, worked side by side with Mr. John Ryder prospecting in South Africa, where every ounce of grit that a white man had in him was bound to show itself? "To be certain he had, and now he was proud to shake the hand of John Ryder's son, and if there was anything John Ryder's son wanted in that camp why he, Platt Riley, was the man to get it for him."
So our sledge travellers found that even in that remote mining camp, buried from the world beneath the snows of an arctic winter, they were among friends. This, coupled with all that they had undergone in reaching it, made it seem to them a very pleasant and comfortable place in which to rest awhile.
And it was necessary that they should stay there for a time. They must cultivate friendly business relations with the miners on Gerald Hamer's account, and find out what class of goods were most in demand; for never until now had Phil realized the responsibility with which he had been entrusted. He must prepare a full report to send back by Kurilla and Chitsah, who could not be tempted to venture any further away from their homes. The dogs must be well rested before they would be fitted for the second and most difficult half of the long journey. Above all, Phil felt that, as representative of the Yukon Trading Company, he must be on hand to meet the agents of its old-established rival, and defend his far-away friend from the false reports they were certain to spread concerning him.
He wondered why Goldollar and Strengel did not appear, and dreaded to meet them; but at the same time longed to have the disagreeable encounter over with as quickly as possible. So many times each day did he gaze long and fixedly across the broad white plain of the Yukon. At length, on the eighth day after their arrival at Forty-Mile, his eye was caught by some moving black dots that he felt certain must be the expected sledges.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE NEW ARRIVAL AT FORTY MILE.
The man known as Strengel was probably as great a rascal as could be found in all Alaska. His sole object in shipping aboard the steamer Norsk at San Francisco had been to make his way, by fair means or foul, to the Yukon gold fields, of which he had gained extravagant ideas. On the night before the Norsk left St. Michaels he stole from the chests of several of his shipmates such small sums of money as they contained, slipped into a canoe, and deserted the ship. He remained in hiding until she sailed, and then, claiming to have been discharged at his own request, offered his services to Gerald Hamer in exchange for a passage to Forty Mile. This proposition being accepted, and Strengel regularly shipped as one of the Chimo's crew, he made a secret proposal to the old company through one of its clerks, who happened to be Simon Goldollar, to so delay and cripple Gerald Hamer's expedition, that he should be forced to abandon it. In attempting to carry out this programme he was foiled by Phil Ryder's quick wit and prompt action.
Making his way back to St. Michaels, after Phil set him ashore at the Pastolik wood-yard, Strengel fell in with Jalap Coombs, and, in company with Goldollar, so managed the money affairs of that unsuspecting sailor that he was unwittingly made to defray all their expenses to Forty Mile, though he only expected to accompany them a short distance up the river. Strengel's sole object was still to reach the gold fields; while Goldollar was intent on winning a reputation for himself by forestalling Gerald Hamer at Forty Mile, and at the same time inflicting what injury he could on Phil Ryder. From the outset they agreed to rid themselves of Jalap Coombs at some point so far up the river that he must necessarily remain where they left him for the rest of the winter. They learned at Nulato that the Chimo was frozen in at Anvik, but took care that this information should not reach Jalap Coombs, whom they soon afterwards so cruelly deserted.
As they travelled beyond the point where they left him, the well-mated pair had such frequent and bitter quarrels, that when Simon Goldollar fell seriously ill, Strengel did not hesitate to rob him of what money he carried and desert him at a native village near the abandoned trading-post of Fort Yukon. Before doing this he discharged the Indians who had come with them from Nulato, and sent them back, telling them that he should remain with his sick friend until he recovered or died. As soon as they were gone he engaged other natives, and set out for the diggings that had for so long been the goal of his desires.
He planned to enter Forty Mile under a new name, and as a traveller from one of the interior Hudson Bay trading-posts, who was ignorant of the lower Yukon, its people, and its happenings. He was confident that Jalap Coombs would never appear to contradict him, and almost equally certain that Simon Goldollar would never reach Forty Mile. If by a miracle he should recover from his illness he was helpless to continue his journey before the boats came up in the summer, by which time the man who had robbed and deserted him would be lost to sight amid the season's rush of prospectors. In the mean time he had plenty of money to live on until he should meet with an opportunity for making a strike of some kind.
Thus it was that on a pleasant day of late January Mr. Strengel approached the mining camp of Forty Mile, riding comfortably in Jalap Coombs's own sledge, with a light heart, and no intimation of aught but an agreeable reception by its citizens. But in all his carefully worked out plans he had made several miscalculations.
It had never occurred to him that there was any other route than the one he had followed by which this point might be reached from the lower river. Nor did he believe it possible that any word of Gerald Hamer's expedition could have come up the river unknown to him. Finally, his gravest mistake lay in supposing the population of this camp to be of the same lawless class as is to be found in most Western mining camps, and believing that here he should meet only with as great rascals as himself. In this he displayed great ignorance of Forty Mile, which was wholly in the hands of honorable old-time miners, who had framed a simple set of laws for the regulation of their isolated little community that they were determined should be respected. They had chosen one of their own number as Judge, and from his decisions they allowed no appeal. They had also elected a Marshal, whom they loyally assisted in the discharge of his duties. Several lawless characters had already been driven from the camp, and many others warned not to venture within its limits.
As Forty Mile had received warning of the expected coming of Goldollar and Strengel, and had learned many interesting things concerning the previous history of these gentlemen, their arrival was eagerly anticipated. Thus, upon Phil Ryder's announcement that sledges were coming up the river, an expectant throng was quickly gathered at the landing.
Mr. Strengel fired several shots from his rifle as he drew near, and was surprised that his salute was not answered in kind. He was, of course, gratified to observe the sensation that his approach was creating, and undertook to arouse some enthusiasm among the silent spectators by yelling: "Hurrah for Forty Mile! Hurrah for the diggings! Hurrah for our side!" Then, as his sledge reached the bank, and he sprang out, he cried, in tones meant to convey hearty good-fellowship:
"How are you, boys? You bet I'm mighty glad to see white men again after camping with a lot of low-lived Injuns for more than two months. You see, I've just come down from Pierre's House in the Porcupine. My name's Bradwick, and—"
Here the speaker's fluent words seemed suddenly to fail him, his face turned pale, and his eyes were fixed in a bewildered stare. He had caught sight of the Yukon Trading Company's sign.
"Ha, ha!" he laughed, recovering himself with an effort. "Seeing the name of an old friend who's long since dead kinder give me a turn. But, as I was saying—"
"Yes, you were just about to tell us what had become of Goldollar," interrupted Mr. Platt Riley, who had received word from Phil that the new-comer was Strengel.
"Goldollar!" stammered the stranger, at the same time starting as though he had been shot. "Goldollar!" he repeated, reflectively; "I don't know the name; never heard it before in my life. I think I mentioned that I'd just come down from Pierre's House on the Porcupine, and hadn't seen a white man since leaving there. There wasn't no one of that name at Pierre's House when I left. What do you mean? Who is Goldollar, anyhow?"
"He's a feller that we heard was coming up from below with a dog train," replied Mr. Riley, deliberately, at the same time gazing full in Strengel's face. "And we didn't know but what you and him might have met up and concluded to travel together."
"How could you hear of him?" inquired the new-comer. "I didn't know there was any way for news to reach Forty Mile in the winter."
"Oh, we might have heard by mail, or telegraph, or seen it in the daily papers, or a dozen other ways. Anyhow, we did hear it, and that another feller was along with him. So of course when we saw you coming up the river—"
"You didn't hear that the other fellow's name was Bradwick, did you?" interrupted the stranger.
"No, that wasn't the name. It wasn't so good a name as that."
"Well, then, you didn't hear that I was coming with him; for Bradwick is my name, and I don't know nothing about any Goldollars, though I hope to find out something about them right here in these diggings," replied Mr. Strengel, boldly, and with attempted jocularity. "Now, seeing that I'm tired, and cold, and hungry," he added, "supposing we adjourn to some place that's warmer than out here in the snow, and better suited for making acquaintances."
"All right," replied Mr. Riley. "We don't know much about Goldollars ourselves, but we'll try and teach you all we do know, and at the same time put you in the way of meeting acquaintances. As you say, though, this is a cold place for talking, so I suppose you might as well come up to my select family boarding-house for the night, seeing as it ain't overcrowded just at present. Then in the morning we'll look round for a place that'll suit you better."
So the new-comer walked away with Mr. Platt Riley, while the spectators of this interesting meeting chuckled and winked significantly, and remarked:
"Ain't the Judge a honey cooler, though? He ain't the kind that'll hang a man first and try him afterwards. Not much; that ain't his style. Fair play's his motter, and turn the rascals out every time."
It is needless to say that during the interview just described Phil, Serge, and Jalap kept themselves out of sight.
All that evening a constant stream of visitors flowed in and out of Mr. Platt Riley's cabin. Each wore an expression of expectancy and suppressed mirth, and each bowed gravely without trusting himself to speak when introduced to Mr. "Bradwick." It was also to be noticed that none of them shook hands with him; when he complained of this to his host he was gravely informed that hand-shaking was not one of the customs of the camp.
On the whole, his impressions of Camp Forty Mile were so unpleasant, that he fully determined to get his dog teams in motion the very next day, and push on further up the river. It was only upon the urgent request of Mr. Platt Riley that he consented to delay his departure long enough to attend a public meeting of the greatest interest to all Yukon miners, that was to be held first thing in the morning.