Yet it was sad, so much weariness, and at the end disenchantment and failure.
Verily the ways of the gold-trail were cruel.
BOOK III
THE CAMP
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For once you've panned the speckled sand and seen the bonny dust, Its peerless brightness blinds you like a spell; It's little else you care about; you go because you must, And you feel that you could follow it to hell. You'd follow it in hunger, and you'd follow it in cold; You'd follow it in solitude and pain; And when you're stiff and battened down let some one whisper "Gold," You're lief to rise and follow it again. |
| —"The Prospector." |
CHAPTER I
I will always remember my first day in the gold-camp. We were well in front of the Argonaut army, but already thousands were in advance of us. The flat at the mouth of Bonanza was a congestion of cabins; shacks and tents clustered the hillside, scattered on the heights and massed again on the slope sweeping down to the Klondike. An intense vitality charged the air. The camp was alive, ahum, vibrant with fierce, dynamic energy.