“That other mine over there on Douglas Island that you see to the right is the Mexican Mine but it’s small fry as against the Treadwell for it only has a hundred and twenty stamps working.”
“We’re not pertiklarly keen on Mexican mines, oil wells or anything else that goes by the name of Mex—we had all the Mexican stuff we wanted when we was down there six months ago,” broke in Bill to whom the word brought no very pleasant recollections.
“To this side of the Mexican mine,” went on the prospector, “is the Ready Bullion mine and it has a two hundred stamp mill.”
“Ready Bullion listens good to me,” admitted Jack, once more breaking into his discourse.
“Shortly after the Treadwell mine began to show itself a bonanza, a story went the rounds that it was an accidental lode, or a blowout as we call it; that is, it was a lode of gold deposited there by some gigantic upheaval of the earth when Alaska was in the makin’ and that it was the only place north of fifty-six where gold could be mined at a profit.
“I always believed that yarn was set agoin’ to keep other prospectors out of the country; but when it kept on producin’, men with picks and shovels came here just the same, and what happened was that other deposits were found and these are the mines that are bein’ worked now in southern Alaska.
“Still other prospectors pushed on further north with their packs on their backs, on sleds which they pulled themselves or which were hauled by dog teams, on horses and mules, and they toiled up the Trail of Heartache, as the nearly straight-up White Pass trail was called in those days. I blazes, and, I was one of ’em.
“Once on the other side of yonder range we prospected for gold bearin’ quartz, and panned the river beds until we reached the Klondike River. There is where Carmack, with two Indian pards, Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie, had already staked rich claims. One day Carmack went down to the stream to wash a piece of moose he had killed and it was then that he saw gold in the water and when he panned it he got more nuggets than his eyes could believe. News of gold travels faster than greased lightnin’ and it was not long before the biggest gold stampede was on that ever took place in the golden history of gold! I blazes!
“Over night the Klondike became famous and wherever human bein’s lived that spoke a language it was a word that they knew and it meant but one thing to them—and that was gold. And, I blazes, the world knew that gold was bein’ panned out in the Klondike by hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars and the world went crazy over it.
“When I got there one mornin’ I was dead-broke but by night I was a rich man. It was nothin’ to wash a hundred, five hundred, I blazes, a thousand dollars from a few pans of gravel. And still further north, somewhere along the Porcupine River, Thornton and a couple of his pards discovered a blow-out where nuggets of gold were so thick they could pick ’em up like stones; they packed them in moosehide sacks and corded them up like stovewood until they had all the gold they thought they could carry out of the country.”