After the summer, beautiful but brief, there came the eight months of grim, relentless winter. Then we had to face the long darkness and the deadly cold; to travel vast, white valleys filled with an almost terrifying silence broken only by the ugly howling of the wolves; to battle through deep and drifting snow along miles of lonely summits, with blizzards blinding and bewildering. But against each problem or task that Nature set us we matched, with zest, our wits and skill. There was the joy of conflict in it. Experience made us self-reliant and we learned to love the life, so free and clean, so full of stirring incident and victorious combat with the elements. Only now am I commencing to get the true perspective of those Yukon days, and by comparison with the soft conventional life of these later years, recognizing how unique and interesting they were.

There comes to my mind a very unpleasant time I had one winter night, when I lost my way, broke my word, and spoiled a happy gathering. If it were a sermon, my text would be, "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."

The Christmas festivities in the Yukon long ago usually continued for about a month. The weather was so frosty that work on the windlass was both disagreeable and risky, so it became customary for the mid-winter weeks to be occupied in visiting or entertaining neighbours and friends. Small "parties" were held in a sort of rotation at the larger cabins up and down the valleys. Everybody was merrymaking. Hospitality knew no artificial bonds, for in those golden days, there was neither prince nor peasant, rich nor poor. Don't think from this that we had no right social standards. I know that much of the fiction about the North is built on the theory that the men in the Klondike diggings practically adopted the moral code of the brothel. That assumption may make a novel "spicy" and increase its sale, but nevertheless it is quite untrue. We, of the creeks, had worthy moral standards, simple but definite, and rigidly enforced. Our social grading, however, was not based on the length and value of a man's "poke," nor on his grandfather's record. If he lived an honest, decent life among us, he was barred from nothing.

In addition to the many smaller affairs, each gulch, where there were miners, would have one big evening for all, church or roadhouse being requisitioned for the occasion. These were called Christmas Tree Entertainments, or simply "Trees" for short. It was one of my duties to name the members of committees to have charge of all arrangements, and I was also expected to be chairman at all the "Trees." To meet this last requirement each creek had to choose a different date so that I could make the rounds.

In the winter of 1905 we had carried through our entertainments at Last Chance, Gold Bottom, and Gold Run. Sulphur Creek was the last, and they had been working to make it the best of all. It was to be held on Dec. 28th. One of the Sulphur men, Robertson, had come over to Gold Bottom to "size up" the programme there and report to his committee. He told me that Sulphur's Tree would easily eclipse the others, and that I must on no account miss it. "You can depend on me, Robertson," I said, "and I'll see whether you Sulphurites can make good your boast. I'll have to 'mush' across from Gold Run that afternoon, but I won't disappoint you."

At noon Dec. 28th a very happy party of six old "tillicums" were gathered in Jordan's cabin on Gold Run. His partner Jim Prophet was there, Coldrick the Londoner, Macgregor the Australian, Bousfield and myself. Prophet had been lucky enough to get a moose that had strayed into the valley within rifle-shot and it lay partly cut up on some poles by the "cache." So he had invited his friends in to help eat some of the choicest parts, moose-steak in ordinary being, of course, too common for a special feast. I shall forbear entering into details of that meal, but our meat-dish was young moose-heart stuffed, roasted, with fresh Klondike river grayling as an entree. Grayling are caught in the fall when slush ice is running in the river. They are sluggishly heading for deep water. You fish for them with rod and line baiting with raw meat. When you pull one out he freezes stiff almost before you can get him off the hook. You catch what you need, take them home, and stack them up like firewood in the cache where they will remain frozen. There you have your winter's supply of absolutely fresh fish.

We were sitting at the table when there came a knock on the door, and in response to Jordan's hearty "Come in," it was opened and the form of our good friend Corp. Haddock, of the North West Mounted Police, emerged through the mist. He sat down a minute or two but wouldn't stay. He was calling at all the cabins giving orders that no one was to attempt to leave the valley until the weather moderated. The barracks thermometer registered 65° below zero, and a dense fog had formed. Under these conditions it was perilous to attempt any journey away from human habitations. No one spoke of my intended trip, (although I found out later that Haddock knew my plans), until he had gone, when Coldrick said, "That puts the finish on your mush to Sulphur, Pringle." "No," I replied, "I gave my word I'd be there and they will be looking for me. I have crossed that divide fifty times. I know every flake of snow on it. Unless the corporal catches me and puts me in the 'cage,' I'll be chairman at the Sulphur Church this evening."

This sounds boastful and foolhardy, but as a fact it was neither. I realized perfectly what I was facing, and knew that, barring accidents, I could keep my promise. I had fifteen miles in all to go, and only one mile of it difficult travelling through deep snow on the low summit, and for that I had my snowshoes. True, it was extremely cold, but I was suitably clothed and knew how to take care of myself, surely, after six years constantly on the trail.

So Jordan went out to get my snowshoes. He came in with the unexpected news that my snowshoes, and likewise their two pair, had disappeared from their pegs. It was plain that Haddock was "wise," and had taken them along with him down creek in a well-meant effort to make me stay indoors. I would have to go six miles down the trail and back to get another pair, and they also might not be there. That was out of the question. I hesitated only long enough to picture the trail. There was only that one mile on which I used the shoes, and though the snow there was deep I could wade through without them. It would mean perhaps an hour longer, but it wasn't two o'clock yet and I had a full six hours to travel fifteen miles. I decided to go.

I set out and made fast time until I struck the drifts on the summit. The short spell of gloom we called day had ended, and it was rapidly growing dark. Before I got over that mile there would be no light, and this unpleasant white fog would be blindfolding my eyes as well. With it all I didn't worry. This was a difficult job that faced me, but I was in my own workshop, had my own tools, and was working at my own trade. Fate, however, had decreed that I should botch things this time.