One of the structures we saw here was called the dog-corral and was a big enclosure built of logs. Dogs were used to carry most of the provisions to the Birch Creek diggings from Circle City, freighting beginning as soon as the snow fell and everything froze hard. There was a pack of these animals around the inn—a sneaking, cringing, hungry lot, rarely barking at intruders or strangers, and easily cowed by a man, but very prone to fight among themselves. They were all Indian dogs, and were of two varieties; one long-haired, called Mahlemut, from the fact that its home is among the Mahlemut Eskimo of the lower Yukon; the other short-haired, and stouter. Both breeds are of large size, and a good dog is capable of pulling as much as 400 pounds on a sleigh, when the snow is very good, and the weather not too cold. The dog-corral is used to put the sleighs in when the freighter arrives, and the dogs are left outside, to keep them away from the provisions. The winter price for freight from Circle City was seven cents per pound; in summer it was forty.
We ate breakfast and supper at Hog'em Junction, paying a dollar apiece for the meals; and when we learned that the bacon which was served to us had cost sixty-five cents a pound, the charge did not seem too much. No good bacon was to be had, that which we ate being decidedly strong; and even this kind had to be hunted after at this time of the year. Not only was food very high in the diggings, but it could not always be bought, so that in the winter, when freighting was cheap, enough could not often be obtained to last through the next summer, and the miners had to wait for the steamer to come up the Yukon. The Hog'em Junction innkeeper paid twenty dollars for a case of evaporated fruit, such as cost a dollar in San Francisco; condensed milk was one dollar a can, and sugar eighty-five cents a pound. The previous winter beans brought one dollar a pound, and butter two and a half dollars a roll. In summer all prices were those of Circle City, plus forty cents freighting, plus ten cents handling. So a sack of potatoes, which I was told would cost twenty-five cents in the state of Washington, cost here eighty-five dollars. Even in Circle City the prices, though comparatively low, were not exactly what people would expect at a bargain counter in one of our cities. Winchester rifles were sold for fifty dollars apiece, and calico brought fifty cents a yard. Luckily there were few women folks in the country at that time!
Of the Hog'em Junction Inn I have little distinct recollection except concerning the meals. We were so hungry when we reached there that the food question was indelibly branded on our memory. For the rest I remember that when supper was cleared away, the guests wrapped themselves in their private blankets and lay down anywhere they thought best. There was a log outhouse with some rude bunks filled with straw, for those who preferred, so in a short time we were stowed away with truly mediæval simplicity, to sleep heavily until the summons came to breakfast,—for there were no "hotel hours" for lazy guests at this inn, and he who did not turn out for a seven o'clock breakfast could go without.
We three separated on leaving here, each taking a different trail, so that we might see all of the gulches in a short space of time. I shouldered my blankets and after a seven mile tramp through the brush came to the foot of Hog'em Gulch, which was in a deep valley in the hills that now rose above the plain. This gulch derived its name from the fact that its discoverer tried to hog all the claims for himself, taking up some for his wife, his wife's brother, his brother, and the niece of his wife's particular friend; even, it is said, inventing fictitious personages that he might stake out claims for them. The other miners disappointed him in his schemes for gain, and they contemptuously called the creek "Hog'em." Afterwards a faction of the claim-owners proposed to change the name to Deadwood, claiming that it sounded better and was also appropriate, inasmuch as they had got that variety of timber on the schemer. It was somewhat unkindly asserted, however, by those who were not residents of the gulch, that the first name was always the most appropriate, since the spirit of the discoverer seemed to have gone down to his successors.
Be that as it may, I noticed a remarkable difference between the men whom I found working their claims along the creek and the miners of Forty Mile. Nobody showed the slightest hospitality or friendliness, except one man on the lower creek, who invited me to share his little tent at night. He had not enough blankets to keep him warm, so I added mine, and beneath them both we two slept very comfortably. In the morning he cooked a very simple meal over a tiny fire outside of the tent—wood was scarce along here—and invited me, with little talk, to partake of it with him. He was evidently far from happy in this cheerless existence; he was working for wages, which, to be sure, were ten dollars a day, but with provisions as high as they were this was nothing much, and the work was so hard that, great stalwart man as he was, he had lost thirty pounds since he had begun. He would have liked to return to the States, for he was somewhat discouraged, but he could not save enough money to pay for the expensive passage out. I hope he has struck it rich since then and brought back to his wife and babies the fortune he went to seek!
On Hog'em Gulch.
After I left this silent man, I found none who showed much interest. Some of them were a little curious as to what I was doing, but most of them were fiercely and feverishly working to make the most of the hours and weeks which remained of the mining season; the run of gold was ordinarily very good, and all were anxious to make as good a final clean-up as possible. At dinner-time everybody rushed to their meal, and I sat down by the side of the trail, ate stale corned beef, broken crackers, and drank the creek water. When I was half-way through I observed two young men in a tent munching their meal, but watching me; and a sort of righteous indignation came upon me, as must always seize the poor when he beholds the abundance of the rich man's table. I walked into the tent and asked for a share of their dinner. They gave me a place, but so surlily that I said hotly, "See here, I'll pay you for this dinner, so don't be so stingy about it." The offer to pay was an insult to the miner's tradition and one of them growled out,