“Yukon, Yukon? I can’t say that I have, but,” and her eyes brightened as though she had solved a jigsaw puzzle, “I have heard of the Klondike.”
“That accounts for it then,” said Jack, “for the Klondike is a gold district and it is named from the Klondike River which it is on. The Klondike River is in the Yukon Territory, which belongs to Canada, and this is directly east of Alaska. The Klondike River is really only a stream, perhaps not over a hundred feet wide, but so rich were the early gold fields there that practically all of the Yukon Territory and a part of Alaska to boot has been called the Klondike country. Such is the fame and power of gold.”
“We own Ilasker, don’t we Jack?” Bill wanted to know.
“Yes, though she used to belong to Russia but the U. S. bought her about fifty years ago for seven million, two hundred thousand dollars. Since then she has produced three hundred million dollars worth of gold. Some bargain, what say, Bill?”
“I’ll say it was,” replied his pal.
“It came about this way,” continued Jack, “when she was owned by Russia she was a losing deal for that country because in the first place she was too far away from the seat of government and there was no wire or wireless communication at that time between them; and in the second place Russia hadn’t any more of a notion as to how to govern her than she has of governing herself now.
“When the Civil War was on Russia was a good friend of the Union and helped us in every way she could, even to loaning us her warships. As Russia wanted to dispose of Alaska and Uncle Sam wanted to pay something for the services she had rendered, Mr. Seward, who was Secretary of State in President Lincoln’s Cabinet, bought the territory, which was then considered entirely worthless, from her.
“The International boundary line that divides Alaska from Canada was in dispute between the United States and Great Britain almost from the time we got her from Russia but neither country did any worrying over it for Alaska was not supposed to be worth arguing about. But when gold was discovered on the Yukon River in 1896 and at Cape Nome in 1898 there was a great stampede, just as there was to California in ’49. Then it was that both the United States and Great Britain got busy and a commission met in London, England, in 1903 to settle the matter, which was done to the satisfaction of both countries.”
“How far away are these gold fields that you and Bill are goin’ to?” Mrs. Adams asked; “are they as far away as the di-am-ond fields of South America?”
“I should say about the same distance, Mrs. Adams, and that is in the neighborhood of some five thousand miles.”