It was after seven o'clock, but still daylight, when Dr. Barwaithe raised his hand for the others to become silent. "Listen!" he said. "I think I heard a steamboat whistle. Ah! I was right. A boat is on the river!"
A few minutes passed, and they heard the whistle again. Then Earl pointed ahead excitedly. "There's the boat, and she is tied up to the river bank. There are half a dozen buildings and fifty tents or more. I'll wager it's Dawson!"
With hearts which beat quickly they sailed forward, using the oars to make the Wild Goose move the faster. Another turn of the stream and the mining town could be seen quite plainly. Ten minutes later they ran up just behind the steamboat and tied fast. The long trip was at an end. The new diggings, with all their golden hopes, lay before them.
CHAPTER XXI.
A DAY IN DAWSON CITY.
At the time of which I write, Dawson City was little better than a rude mining camp, containing, as has been previously mentioned, a half dozen board buildings and fifty tents, strung along what was known as the principal "street." Back in the timber land a rude saw-mill had been set up, and this was beginning to get out lumber at the moderate price of one hundred and twenty-five dollars per thousand feet!
A year before Dawson City had been unknown, but the rich finds of gold on Bonanza and Gold Bottom creeks had caused the miners to leave Circle City and Forty Mile Post and boom the new El Dorado, as it was termed, and the settlement grew as if by magic. From the wild rush to stake claims many rows resulted, but the cooler heads speedily took matters in hand, and each man was allowed a claim from five to fifteen hundred feet long and extending the width of the creek or gulch in which it was located.
These claims were not located upon the Klondike River, which joins the Yukon at Dawson City, as has been often supposed, but upon the little watercourses running into the Klondike. These gold-bearing diggings are, or were, variously called Bonanza, Gold Bottom, and Bear creeks, which flow into the Klondike direct, and Hunker, Last Chance, El Dorado, Adams, Shantantay, and other creeks and semi-wet gulches which are tributaries to the creeks first named. The names were arbitrary, and were often changed to suit the miners' tastes.