At Juneau, Yukon travellers provide themselves with an outfit of snow-shoes, sledges, tents, fur clothing, provisions, and whatever else seems to them necessary. Starting in the early spring, they proceed by boat to the Chilkat country, seventy miles distant, and to the head of Chilkoot Inlet. From there they set forth on a terrible mountain climb over snow many feet in depth, where they are in constant danger from avalanches, and cross the coast range by a pass that rises three thousand feet above timber-line. On the opposite side they strike the head-waters of the Yukon, which they follow through a series of six lakes, sledging over their still ice-bound waters, and rafting down their connecting links, in which are seething rapids, dark gorges, and roaring cañons, around which all goods must be carried on men’s backs. After some two hundred miles of these difficulties have been passed, trees must be felled, lumber sawed out, and boats constructed for the remaining five hundred miles of the weary journey.
As it would not pay to transport freight by this route, all provisions and other supplies for the diggings are shipped from San Francisco by sea to St. Michaels, where they are transferred to small river steamers like the Chimo, and so, after being many months on the way, finally reach their destination. By this time their value has become so enhanced or “enchanted,” as the miners say, that Phil Ryder found flour selling for $30 per barrel, bacon at 35 cents per pound, beans at 25 cents per pound, canned fruit at 60 cents per pound, coarse flannel shirts at $8 each, rubber boots at $18 per pair, and all other goods at proportionate rates. Even sledge dogs, such as he had purchased at Anvik for $5 or $6 each, were here valued at $25 apiece.
In view of these facts it is no wonder that the news of another steamer on the river bringing a saw-mill to supply them with lumber, machinery with which to work the frozen but gold-laden earth of their claims, and a large stock of goods to be sold at about one-half the prevailing prices, created a very pleasant excitement among the miners of that wide-awake camp.
On the day following his arrival, and after a careful survey of the situation, Phil rented the largest building in the place, paying one month’s rent in advance, and giving its owner an order on Gerald Hamer for the balance until the time of the Chimo’s arrival. This building had been used as a saloon, and was conveniently located close by the steamboat-landing facing the river. Into it the sledge party moved all their belongings, including the seventeen wolf-skins, which now formed rugs for their floor as well as coverings for several split-log benches. Serge and the two Indians at once started up the river with the sledges for a supply of firewood, which was a precious article in Forty Mile at that time, leaving Phil and Jalap Coombs to clean the new quarters and render them habitable. While the latter, with a sailor’s neat deftness, attended to this work, Phil busied himself with a pot of black paint and a long breadth of cotton cloth. At this he labored with such diligence that in an hour’s time a huge sign appeared above the entrance to the building and stretched across its entire front. On it, in letters so large that they could be plainly read from the river, was painted the legend, “Yukon Trading Company, Gerald Hamer, Agent.”
This promise of increased business facilities was greeted by a round of hearty cheers from a group of miners who had assembled to witness the raising of the new sign, and when Jalap Coombs finished tacking up his end one of these stepped up to him with a keen scrutiny. Finally he said, “Stranger, may I be so bold as to ask who was the best friend you ever had?”
“Sartain you may,” replied the sailor-man, “seeing as I’m allers proud to mention the name of old Kite Roberson, and likewise claim him for a friend.”
“I thought so!” cried the delighted miner, thrusting out a great hairy paw. “I thought I couldn’t be mistook in that figger-head, and I knowed if you was the same old Jalap I took ye to be that Kite Roberson wouldn’t be fur off. [Why, matey, don’t you remember the old brig Betsy?] Have you clean forgot Skiff Bettens?”
[“WHY, MATEY, DON’T YOU REMEMBER THE OLD BRIG ‘BETSY’?”]
“Him that went into the hold and found the fire and put it out, and was drug up so nigh dead from smoke that he didn’t breathe nateral agin fur a week? Not much I hain’t forgot him, and I’m nigh about as glad to see him as if he were old Kite hisself!” exclaimed Jalap Coombs, in joyous tones. Then he introduced Mr. Skiff Bettens, ex-sailor and now Yukon miner, to Phil, and pulled him into the house, and there was no more work to be got out of Jalap Coombs that day.