At night, in the mountains, and at the heads of streams, frost holds sway, then the flow of water is arrested. But when the sun's heat melts the snow and ice up there, the body of water is increased and the current accelerated.
We met several parties coming up the river—very hard work they had. The rush had begun already there. On the fourth day we reached the Yukon and Dawson City.
As we neared the main river we had still more evidence of the rush. A very different state of things existed to that when we came up, and we met large numbers pushing up the Klondyke. We passed numerous camps, and heard from some of them wonderful accounts of what was being done up the tributaries of that river.
The topic was gold, naturally; but we also heard much about "grub," which appeared to be with many quite as important a subject. There was a scarcity of it, all declared, and there would be until the St Michael's boats arrived.
Small heed was paid to us: a few remarks were made about May, wonder was expressed at her being up there; but all were so absorbed in their own affairs that they took little interest in us, which was precisely what we preferred.
Dawson was all alive too. The river front was still encumbered with ice, but we were assured that it was dissolving rapidly. In places men were building boats or repairing them, in others they were stowing outfits into them: there were no idlers.
We landed just below the last shanty, and camped. Then Coney and I marched into the town. I was anxious to discover the store where I had found that nice Englishwoman when I went there before to buy the canoe. I had planned to speak to her about obtaining decent quarters for May.
I soon found the place, and had little difficulty; for after I had told this lady a portion of my darling's history and a few of her adventures, she begged me to bring her in and let her see her, any way. This I did at once; and they had hardly met before I was informed that May was to stop there until the boat sailed, which, we had ascertained, would be a week from the day we arrived.
Reports from down river, from Cudahy, had been received in some way, and were favourable.
There was only one steamboat at Dawson preparing to go down; very few were going in her. The captain was anxious to make a rapid passage, as he knew there were crowds of people at St Michael's, ready to pay big prices to get up. This just suited us, and I quickly secured our berths.