"Back at that bunch of bush are the ruins of old Fort Selkirk, which Robert Campbell built for the Hudson Bay Company in the year 1849. In 1852 the Chilkats burned it down, because it was cutting off their trade with the savages hereabouts. You see, before the Hudson Bay fellows got in here, the Chilkats, who held the passes to the sea, used to give inside Indians most nothing for their furs, and sell them at a big profit to the white traders on the coast. The Chilkats would not let the inside Indians out to the coast to trade for themselves. Well, when the Hudson Bay Company showed up, it broke up the cinch the Chilkats thought their own, and they came after the Company. The Indians then hereabouts, the wood Indians, got hold of the plans of the Chilkats and kept watch; but they let up for a few days, and the Chilkats came into the Fort and told the officers they had to get. It was a ground-hog case, so they just naturally got! Campbell found the local Indians and came back; but the Chilkats had cleaned out. The tea, tobacco, and sugar they took away with them, and what they couldn't take they cached. The Chilkats didn't offer to do murder, though they are up to most anything. One thing they took away with them was the Company's flag, which the Chilkats keep at Kluckwan, their village on the Chilkat River which lies in the valley just over the mountains west of Skagway. The Chilkats are very proud of their 'King George man' flag!
"It was on August 21 the Fort was seized, so Campbell had to do something right away quick, before the winter set in: so, after going down the Yukon to White River, where he met the remainder of his men, who had been to Fort Yukon and were coming back, he told them to go back down the river and winter at Fort Yukon, and he lit out up the Pelly and over the Divide to the Liard, and down the Liard to Fort Simpson. When he got there the Liard was running bank full of ice."
The next place that drew reminiscences from Hugh was the mouth of Stewart River. Here was a police-post with a few cabins.
"In 1885, thirty miles up the Stewart, the first considerable bar diggings was struck. Dick Popham was up there in 1884, but he did not find anything—water was too high. Frank Densmore and Johnnie Hughes brought to Juneau, in the fall of 1885, the news of good gold on the Stewart; and in 1886 the gang went in, about three hundred. Along with the gang went George Carmack, but he took up with the Siwashes on the Chilkoot. You see, when the fellows started in first, the Siwashes packed from what is now Dyea to Lindeman for nine cents a pound; but as the boys were in a hurry prices rose to thirty cents—and this was too much for Carmack, who was a Missourian; besides, he got stuck on a squaw. I guess he must have stayed with the Siwashes ever since, travelling among them and living their life till he made the big strike on Bonanza, which started this here stampede.
"When the boys got to the Stewart diggings, in 1886, they found them good all right, but not enough to go round; so a lot of them lit out down the river, away below Fort Yukon, to try some prospects reported from there. Among the bunch was Bill Hartz—'Web-foot' the boys called him, because he came from Oregon. Well, those boys tried the lower diggings, and found them no good; so Web-foot started back up the river on Jack McQuestion's steamer called the New Racket. Jack McQuestion was trading in the country then, with Arthur Harper and Al Mayo as partners. He was in the country before Harper, and used to work for the Hudson Bay Company on the Mackenzie. At this time they had four posts—one at Fort Selkirk, one at Stewart River, one just below Dawson, and one about where Eagle City now is. There was a big mountain there called by Harper Teetotalim.
"At Teetotalim there was a queer sort of fellow from back east in Canada, a Frenchman, who was always fooling round with bits of rock, and talking about how the mountains were made. One day a Siwash blew in with a piece of woolly rock which the Frenchman said was 'Asiebestos,' and, if there was much of it, it would be worth money; so McQuestion sent out Web-foot with a grub-stake to find the place. Web-foot did not find the 'Asiebestos,' but he found gold on the Forty Mile, as also did Howard Franklin, who was sent up the Forty Mile from its mouth by McQuestion. They came back out, and on up the Yukon to winter at Stewart. Next year the fellows left Stewart for the Forty Mile, and George Matlock, Billy Leak, Oscar Ashley, and Percy Walker found Matlock Bar, with coarse gold, which washed down out of Franklin Gulch. Franklin Gulch was found in August, 1887. This was the first really coarse gold found in the Yukon, and the best discovery up to that time.
"While the boys were wintering at Stewart grub got short, and Harper passed it round, fair and square—not raising the price any. But one day some stuff was stole, and Harper told the boys, who called a miners' meeting right off. The boys appointed a committee to go round and search the cabins, for every fellow was glad enough to clear himself by showing everything he had. Nothing was found. And then the boys thought of two fellows, Missouri Bill and Arkansaw Frank, who lived down the river a bit. And when they struck a fresh trail leading to and from their cabin, they became mighty interested; and when they saw where they had made a fire, and found half-burnt-up staves of a butter firkin, they got real hot. When they got up to the cabin the door opened and the two fellows came out; one of them, Missouri Bill, with a Winchester in his hands, swearing he would shoot the first man who came a step further. This stopped the boys for a bit; but Frank Morphet got a rope off a sleigh and slipped round back of the cabin. The first thing Missouri Bill knew he had a rope round his neck—and the game was up! Well, the boys didn't want to hang them, so each of the fellows gave them a handful of beans, or a little rice, and told them to get, thinking that mushing out five hundred miles, and breaking trail all the way, was pretty nearly as bad as hanging. They made the trip all right, but it was only because they met some Siwashes."