When my views were thus gloomy, a smell of smoke came to my nostrils, and crossing a little stream on a fallen tree, I came to the friendly inn I was seeking.
The next morning, at five o'clock by my watch and eight by the host's, (it is unnecessary to observe that there was no standard time used in the Birch Creek district) I started for Twelve Mile Cache. The first part of the trail was fairly well worn, but was covered with small dead trees which had fallen across it, necessitating the continual lifting of the feet and the taking of irregular steps. Ten miles of this was enough to make one very weary. I lunched on my stale corned beef and cracker crumbs, and drank from a little creek that I crossed. Soon after this, I came to a place where a newly blazed trail, leading to the Twelve Mile Cache, diverged from the older path, which ran up over the mountains. Deciding to take the newer route, I found it very hard walking, especially as my feet were clad in the Eskimo sealskin boot, or makalok, which are soft and offer little protection. Much of the road lay among immense untrodden nigger-heads and in swampy brush, where the sticks which had been cut off in making the trail stuck up three or four inches above the ground, just convenient for stubbing the toe; and yet the long grass quite concealed them, so they could not be avoided. Afterwards the trail struck into an old winter sleighing road, and I got on more rapidly for a few miles; but the mosquitoes had increased to legions and stung painfully. The gnats and flies were also numerous, the big deer flies biting my ears where the mosquito netting rested on them, till they were bloody.
At about four o'clock the cut trail came to an end, and here was a stick pointing into the woods, inscribed:
"Foller thes blaies to Twelv Mill House. Six Mills to Twelv Mill House 9 Mills Central House."
The "blaies" (blazes) had been newly cut, and as I started to follow them, it seemed that they led through the thickest of the brush, where it was almost impossible to fight one's way, especially with a pack, which protrudes on both sides of the shoulders, and which often wedges one firmly between two saplings. Soon the blazes grew further and further apart; after leaving one it often took ten minutes to find the next, scouting around everywhere in the tangle of bushes. The mosquitoes kept up their attacks, and my head began to ache splittingly, partly from their bites and partly from the jerking of the head strap of my pack in my struggles through the brush.
At last in despair I abandoned the attempt to follow the blazes, and turning square away from them, struck off in the direction where I knew the Hog'em Junction trail, by which we had reached the diggings, must lie, steering by my compass. Very soon I found better walking,—comparatively open swampy patches, with alder thickets between—and in half a mile I cut into the trail I was seeking. Three miles of this trail brought me to Twelve Mile Cache, after one of the hardest days I had had in Alaska. Compared with such a trip as this the dreaded Chilkoot Pass was not so formidable, after all. The entire distance I had travelled was twenty-seven miles. I had counted my paces through it all, and they tallied with the count of my companions, who came on later.
For supper at Twelve Mile Cache we had fresh fish,—pike and Arctic trout—taken from a trap in the river, and fresh vegetables raised on the roof, which was covered with a luxuriant garden. A thick layer of rich loam had been put on, and the seed dropped into this throve amazingly, for the fires inside the cabin supplied warmth, and the plants did not have to fight against the eternal frost which lies everywhere a short distance below the surface. The long glorious sunshine of the northern summer did the rest, and splendid potatoes, rutabagas, cabbages, beets, and lettuce were the results.
The fifteen miles back to Circle City the next day was a very weary walk, for my overwork on the day before had left me tired out. The mosquitoes were maddening on the last part of the trail, in spite of gloves and veil. On getting into Circle City, however, I was kindly welcomed by my friends, the customs officers, and given a square meal. The room we had occupied as a bedroom had, in the short time since we had left, been put to still other uses. A newly arrived physician was using it for a laboratory, and a man who had brought a scow load of merchandise down the Yukon was storing his stuff in the same room. Also a red-sweatered young man turned up who said he had been told to sleep here, but the customs officers kicked him out and he went and slept under an upturned boat on the bank. After a bath I felt refreshed, but glancing into a looking-glass for the first time for many a day, I saw that my appearance was still against me. I was a long-haired, bushy-bearded, ragged, belted and knifed wild man, not fair to look upon.
I spent the next day in wandering around town in a desultory fashion, and on returning to the customhouse found the door locked. When I knocked I was challenged and then cautiously admitted: on entering I was surprised to see the officers with their rifles ready for use alongside of them. Ross lifted up the strip of calico which formed a curtain hiding the space under the bed and disclosed two good-sized kegs. These he told me he and Wendling (the other officer) had seized while we were away. It was, and is, entirely illegal to bring liquor into the territory of Alaska, and this law and its attendant features have brought about much of the dishonesty and corruption which have made the inside history of Alaskan government since its acquisition by Americans such a dismal one.
