At nine o'clock at night we climbed the steep, slippery, slimy bank to the two cabins which constituted Johnson's Camp, to find the one apparently inhabitable cabin already occupied by four as tough-looking specimens of humanity as ever came down the Yukon. But that didn't make any difference, except that they had a first lien on the soft spots of the floor to the extent of four times six feet by two. They had a cheerful, warm fire cracking in the stove, the floor was dry, and the outlook for a good rest was excellent. But it was not thus to be. Thirteen in the cabin taxed its capacity. Another party who sought the same shelter, blocked at the entrance by a full house and a stony stare, departed. The cooking began to mess things, and the carelessness and profuseness of the gentlemen's expectoration,—gently but diabolically aggravated by the now general leakage through a sieve-like roof,—eliminated from my mind any intention which I may have had of placing my blankets and myself upon the floor. In fact, it was difficult to locate one's self, sitting or standing, so as to avoid a trickle of water down the neck. Here was a good time for a bottle of whisky to get in its work, and Louis needed a stiff drink, for he was pretty ill. So, round it went throughout the choice circle, and back it came to me, empty enough.
Three of us decided to sit out the night about the fire; the rest in grotesque fashion lay stretched upon the floor. As a David Harum sort of miner once said to me, "The more you see of a certain class of people, the better you love a dog"; and about that time I felt very kindly disposed toward the unjustly-rated lower animals. It was generally agreed, before the turning in began, to make a four-o'clock start in the morning, and about the only thing which the three of us who sat together had in common was the intention that such a start should be made. As we poked and added to the fire, and dodged the drip, the would-be sleepers showed their disapproval of the noise and heat by moving and muttering, and the semiconscious, but unrivaled, Trundy rounded out a series of epithets which left no doubt as to his exact sentiments. One of the figures raised itself and basted the head of a snoring Yukoner. Louis, in his dreamy wanderings, with unnecessary vigor, but through force of habit, attacked the poor dogs by references to their maternal ancestry. One of the two who kept me company, whom I despised more than the other, of wizened physique and a mean eye, fearful lest his goods might spoil, occasionally migrated out into the early morning light and wet; and, slipping and sliding down the mucky incline, mushed over to the boat, lifted the canvas, and investigated the quantity of water in the craft. Then, perhaps having bailed a little, he would climb back again to enjoy the hospitality of the cabin and to intimate that he was doing my work as well as his own. Having seen his supplies go into the boat first, and on the bottom, I could remark that I would take the chances of having my goods damaged. The best we could do was to rouse the reluctant crowd at five o'clock, and, after a delectable breakfast, served as you snatched it, get under way shortly after six to complete the remaining six or seven miles to Council City. It had not been a pleasant evening. Perhaps the night spent on the Elmore, the year before, was, on the whole, a more disagreeable experience; but, nevertheless, the writer believes it would require a combination of the genius of Poe and Kipling to paint a fitting word-picture of that sojourn at Johnson's Camp, on the Neukluk.
The stream was now very high from the rain which had just ceased. The freighters had their hardest work ahead of them; for the sloughs became more frequent, the water extended well up to the brush and spruce, and until we reached a point a few miles below Council there was but little footing for the dogs. The rest of us, leaving the meanderings of the river, struck out overland as straight as possible for Council. I caught some of them eying me like a hawk, and knew that they suspected that I had a retainer from the gentlemen with whom I had so agreeably passed the night. Having made a wide detour inland through mossy swamp and brush, we came to Mystery Creek, which was adorned in places with deep banks of solid snow and glaciers. This crossed, and having gained the open, that weird, familiar landscape presented itself—the bleak hills back of Council, rising to the dignity of mountains, fringed at the base with a growth of small timber, and approached by a plain of tundra. As Sam Dunham, in one of his matchless Alaskan poems, with fine alliteration says:
"We traversed the toe-twisting tundra,
Where reindeer root round for their feed";
and if there is any contrivance of mother earth's which is calculated to sap man's remaining energy, it is this plodding over the Russian moss, avoiding the stagnant pools upon its surface, and stepping and reaching from hassock to hassock,
Sometimes as soggy as sawdust,
More frequently soft as a sponge.
[Mr. Dunham will, I trust, pardon this imitation of his "alliteration's artful aid.">[
Inspired, perhaps, by the nearness of the goal, and possibly by a desire to show them I could do it, I then proceeded to cut loose from the "hardy miners"; and, not long afterward, in the cool and sunny forenoon, stood high on the brow of the precipitous palisades leading into Council, which looked very attractive in what it promised and in its own strangely picturesque surroundings. Then followed a hurried descent to Melsing Creek, a fording of that little tributary, and, now in town, a search for the edifice which should bear the firm insignia. There it was, my name staring me in the face! Hastily mounting the three steps, if you please, which led to the front entrance of the new log cabin, I pounded the door, heard a familiar "Come in," and burst in upon my partner, looking as fine as a fiddle and in the very act of laying down the law to an unsuspecting client. Thus then, at last, after not a few vicissitudes, some seven thousand miles had been traversed and the au revoir of the year before realized in the present. It had been, of course, an easier undertaking than before, and at no time lacking in interest; but the writer believes that, as regards the trip from Golovin Bay to Council City, the physical labor of the previous year was preferable to the lack of companionship in its successor.