UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE
WHITE PASS
I have stumbled upon a few "tough" corners of the globe during my wanderings beyond the outposts of civilisation, but I think the most outrageously lawless quarter I ever struck was Skagway in the days of its early infancy. Now, I am told, Skagway is a flourishing township, boasting of the orthodox amount of "broad" streets and "palatial" buildings for an American "boom" camp. This may be, though—unless the geographical features of the district have altered—I can hardly credit it. When I was there the embryo city balanced itself precariously along the lower slopes of the White Pass, and a good percentage of the population had to be content with huts built on piles within the tidal limit of the Lynn Canal. In short, there was no room to build anything, and Skagway existed simply because it marked the entry to the Yukon's frozen treasure. Its permanent residents were, for the most part, sharpers of the worst type; indeed, it seemed as if the scum of the earth had hastened here to fleece and rob, or, failing those gentle arts, to murder the unwary voyagers to or from the Golden North. There was no law whatsoever; might was right, the dead shot only was immune from danger.
It was late autumn in the year when the first news of Klondike riches burst upon the world, when I, with my companion Mac, arrived at the head of the Lynn inlet, en route for the land of snows and nuggets. Our ship, the Rosalie, carried a goodly number of passengers, but they were mainly of the ruffian "store and saloon-keeper" variety, and few, if any, of them ever got beyond the pass. The true gold-miner is proverbially poor, and as yet his kind had not been numerous on the trail. As for myself, I was enterprising if nothing else, and my companion made up for my deficiencies in other respects. He was a ferocious individual without a doubt, my worthy henchman; without him my early journeyings would have ended before they had well begun, but, being a hardened traveller, he knew how to adapt himself to circumstances, and how to come off best in a scrimmage, both of which traits were brought fully out before we had been long in the villainous little camp of Skagway. Our first twenty-four hours' experiences may be worth relating.
We were the only representatives of Old England in these uncouth parts at this period, a fact which had not made us any more beloved by the aggressively hostile Yankees on board the Rosalie. Times without number they told me how the "great American nation" could wipe the British Isles off the face of the earth at a moment's notice, and how a "free-born American" was equal to a dozen Britishers, and how we two would be swallowed alive by these same men should we dare say a word to the contrary. We bore a good deal of this sort of thing in silence, though occasionally throughout the protracted voyage my fiery aide-de-camp retaliated angrily, and did considerable damage among his tormentors, who proved to be warlike only in their speech. But this is a digression, and though I could write pages on that momentous cruise—we ran aground five times, and were practically wrecked twice—I must desist and continue my narrative.
The first man we saw after being dumped on the muddy shores of Skagway Bay was a short, red-headed individual, with ruddy countenance to match, who fairly bristled with weapons of the most bloodthirsty description. He approached Mac and me as we stood hesitatingly by the water's edge looking around for some habitation wherein we might find refuge for the first night of our sojourn in a strange land.
"Hallo, stranger!" he saluted, affably, firing a huge revolver unpleasantly close to my ear in a most nonchalant manner.