The sight of little Gussie Lamore, with her skirt just touching the tops of her shoes, spinning around in a waltz with that big French-Canadian, set all of Bill’s amorous nature aglow. He went to the hotel, filled his pockets with pokes of gold dust and came quickly back to the dance hall, where he obtained an introduction to Gussie.
Bill’s wooing was of the rapid kind. Before the night was over he had told Gussie—
“I’ll give you your weight in gold tomorrow morning if you will marry me—and I guess you’ll weigh about $30,000.”
Pretty Gussie shook her head coquettishly. “We will just be friends, Swiftwater, and I guess that’ll be about all.”
Of course, it was only a day or two before all Dawson knew of Swiftwater’s infatuation. The two became fast friends and got along beautifully for a week or two. Then came a bitter quarrel, and from that arose the incident which gave Swiftwater Bill almost his greatest fame—it is the story of how he cornered the egg market in Dawson in a valiant effort to hold the love of his sweetheart, Gussie Lamore.
It was in the spring of 1898 and Dawson was very short of grub of every kind. The average meal of canned soup, a plate of beans garnished by a few slices of bacon or canned meat, with a little side dish of canned or dried potatoes stewed, hot cakes or biscuit and coffee, cost about $5 and sometimes more. The cheapest meal for two persons was $10, and Bill had seen to it, while trying to win Gussie for his wife, that she had the best there was to eat in Dawson.
The two were inseparable on the streets. Then came the quarrel—it was simply a little lovers’ dispute, and then the break.
Swiftwater put in two days assiduously cultivating the friendly graces of the other dance hall girls in Dawson, but Gussie cared not.
One night an adventurous trader came down from the Upper Yukon in a small boat—there were no steamers then—and brought two crates of fresh eggs from Seattle.
Swiftwater heard of this, and he knew that there would be a tremendous demand for those eggs, as the miners usually made their breakfasts of the evaporated article; so, shrewdly, he went immediately to the restaurant which had purchased the crates and called for the proprietor.