The handsome reward of her industry and pertinacity calls to mind that fable of Æsop's where the young men found that the hidden treasure their father had described to them was in the yield the soil had given after they had industriously digged it over.
We were talking about this the other night, and the humour and tragedies of the gold stampede, over the last bottle of champagne—-positively the last—that remained of the most prolonged and celebrated spree that ever took place in the North. The vintage was a Koch Fils of 1892 and, therefore (to save your mental arithmetic), I may add, twenty-one years old. It was brought in by the Helpman Expedition, familiarly known to the local wiseacres of the day as "The Helpless Proposition."
Did it taste well?
I do not know.
I like lemonade with maraschino cherries better than champagne, but the party were agreed that it was excellent drinking. One said it had a pulse; another, that European grapes sucked in more sun than those grown in America; "The stuff that makes the world go round," remarked a third. Assuredly it looks well, thought I, and the bubbles caper like they were alive.
Under the balm and stimulus of the champagne, the men (all of them old-timers) were not indisposed to talk concerning the party who brought it into the country and of the things that befell them. Also, they tell about the other parties who attempted to reach the gold-diggings by the overland route from Edmonton. These were heart-breaking tales, with, here and there, a golden thread of humour showing up in the black fabric of despoliation and defeat.
The thirty members of the Helpman Party came from Great Britain. They were unfortunate from the start. They arrived at Edmonton on Christmas Eve, one of them, Captain Alleyn, being ill with pneumonia, from which disease he died a couple of days later. He was the artist of the party, and correspondent of Reuter's News Agency.
His was the first military funeral held in the North, so that it was an event around which much interest centred.
The expedition was under the command of Colonel Helpman and Lord Avonmore of Gortmerron House, County Tyrone, known to the local folk by the unkind name of "Lord 'Ave-one-more." He died last year in Ireland. "A truly remarkable man, my dear," said an old lady of our lemonade group, "and always he talked of smashing niggers."
All provisions and supplies for the gold crusade were brought from England, except the horses, and the duty thereon amounted to several thousand dollars. In truth, they were provisioned under War Office approval, for, said they, "We are English gentlemen and must travel as English gentlemen." Baled hay and hay-choppers, baths, beds, tents, sanitary conveniences, and other impedimenta were imported by the train-load.