"We'd ha' gone back, sure, but we knew two men had climbed it a'ready, Georgie Holt in '72, and Dumb MacMillan, in '80. What they'd done, we reckoned we could do.
"Sheer rock, she was, all slick an' icy, to begin with; above that, stretches o' snow-fields on so steep a slope that a false step meant a snow-slide an' good-bye! crevasses in the snow goin' down below all knowin', an' mostly covered over wi' light snow so's you couldn't see 'em; an', near the top, a pile o' loose an' shaky rocks built up like a wall, straight as the side of a house, an', in some spots, leanin' over. That was the Chilkoot Pass!
"The cold was cruel; a steady wind, nigh to a blizzard, sucked through the Pass continooal, tearin' a man from his footin.' There was no shelter, an' high up, no fire-wood.
"There was no trail, neither! We had to go it, blind. An', up that rock, over them snow-fields, across them crevasses, an', fly-like, crawling up that wall o' bowlders, we had to drag our dunnage! The sleighs had to be pulled up, empty. Our sacks o' flour had to be toted on our backs! An' our bacon an' groceries, enough to last us months! An' our tools an' cradles! I made five trips to get my stuff across—an it took me five weeks. Between whiles, I rested, if lyin' exhausted means rest!
"There was eight of us that started. There was only three when the stuff was on the summit o' the pass! Two had been crushed by fallin' rocks. The other three had all disappeared sudden in a crevasse, what they thought was solid snow givin' down under 'em. Only Red Bill, Bull Evans an' me was left.
"Mind, there was no trail an' no guide! Holt had been over years before, but the Indians killed him. Dumb MacMillan went over it twice, an' never was heard of no more. Me an' my pardners was the third, an', as I was sayin', o' the eight that started, only three got to the top."
"Yet how many thousands climbed that Pass after gold had been struck on the Klondyke?" queried Owens.
The Top of the Chilkoot Pass.