The Trail of a Sourdough Part 3

"'I want you, Father,' he continued, laying his hand affectionately on his pa's knee, 'to do my book-keeping, reckoning the time and wages of my men at work on the claims. Accounts of a.s.sessment work on twenty claims, besides new prospecting in different localities, will give you something to do after cutting the kindling for Mother; and neither of you need feel that you are useless nor idle. Part of these gold claims are yours, and in your own names, and you can both make short 'mushing'

trips of inspection over the country when you like; though the new railroad up Anvil will be finished in a few weeks, and then you can ride. Under no consideration must either of you think for one moment of buying steamer tickets back to the States inside of a year. At the end of that time we will be taking out so much gold that you will not wish to leave, I a.s.sure you. I am almost thirty years old now, Mother, and you and Father are all I have,' he said softly, pressing my hand.

"Then I kissed his forehead and promised to stay, and I have never been sorry. Father said he would try it a year, and then see about staying longer, and here we are still in Nome after four years without once going 'outside'.

"And you like it here?" they asked.

"Very much indeed, because our ground is turning out finely, and Leroy is so good to us.

"About that tundra claim, however, nothing was ever done. Pa could never be induced to step his foot upon it again, and being so determined in the matter, we just let it drop.

"There it is yet, St. Charles cream can, stakes, and all; but the four foot hole, with its icy foundations, is nowhere to be seen, having been long ago levelled by wind and weather."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER III

THE HIDDEN LEDGE

The summer of 1897 was a memorable one in the great Northwest. It was then that the first authentic news of the immense richness of the Klond.y.k.e region became public. Less than a dozen persons had wintered on Bonanza and Eldorado, the famous gold creeks discovered by Carmack in September, 1896, and these reported the marvelously rich "strikes."

Certain weighty moose-hide sacks they carried, confirmed their stories.

Two weeks later the docks of the princ.i.p.al cities on the sunset coast presented a changed appearance. All was hurry and flurry. Ships being loaded to the deck rails were moored by their great hawsers alongside docks groaning under immense freight deposited upon them. The rush and clatter of drays and wagons united in one deep, deafening roar. These huge ma.s.ses of freight and baggage presented the same general appearance. Everything with which to begin mining life in a new and barren country was there. Dog sleds and fur robes, heavy army sacks crammed to their drawstrings with Mackinaw and rubber clothing, boots and shoes, boats, tents, dogs and horses, piles of lumber for boat building, coils of rope, dog harness and bales of hay, while fat yellow coated hams bulged in heaps both gay and greasy in the summer sun as though further frying were unnecessary.

There were mining tools heaped in corners or against the walls of warehouses, being stacked too high to safely keep their places if jostled ever so lightly. New and clean gold pans, one inside another, towered roofward among outfits of aspiring tradespeople of the prospective camps in the Klond.y.k.e; these same rich men in embryo being also the proprietors of the closely piled sacks of flour, meal and beans, along with hundreds of cases of b.u.t.ter, eggs and cream, _ad infinitum_.

Among the hurrying, excited men preparing for departure an undesirably large number were those anxiously caring for bottle-filled cases and black barrels, c.u.mbrous and heavy enough to have been already crammed with Klond.y.k.e gold; but in reality being full to the brim of that which (their owners prognosticated) would relieve them of using pick and shovel, and bring them without effort after their arrival in the new diggings all the shining gold they could want to handle. It concerned them little that they would give in exchange for all this wealth only that which would deplete the pockets, befuddle the brains and steal the wits of the deluded purchasers, making them in every case less able to cope with adverse conditions so desperate in this new, untried, and remote region.

These men walked, well dressed and pompous, among their goods and chattels on the great and busy wharves in the hot sunshine, mopping their perspiring brows and fat cheeks, which latter, like those of well kept porkers, adorned their rubicund faces. Across their broad waistcoats dangled glittering ropes and "charms" of tawdry composition, well suited to the ankles of a chaingang, so heavy were they; and from spotless white shirt fronts there shone jewels (?) of enormous size and cheapness.

Above the din was heard at short intervals on the steamer's deck the rattle of machinery, dropping huge, freight-laden nets or baskets into the hold. Upon the wharves hustled blackened stevedores, flushed and panting, reeking with perspiration and tobacco juice, but straining, tugging, lifting until one could almost imagine he heard their muscles snap; resolutely and steadily laboring hour after hour, until at last, wearied beyond further endurance, they gave way to others who sprang energetically into their places.

It was little past midsummer. A large ship of the collier cla.s.s, lately fitted in the roughest possible manner for carrying pa.s.sengers to Alaska, lay alongside the dock in the great town of S. Hundreds of people waited on sh.o.r.e to catch the latest glimpse of friends about to leave them, while a round thousand of those eager to "strike it rich" in the new Klond.y.k.e swarmed over the vessel.

Of these, many, no doubt, would never return. It was a sad day, and brightened only by that hope without which the world would be undone.

Upon their arrival in the quiet little sea of Lynn three days later all hands were cheered because this indicated the end of their uncomfortable voyage; and even if new discomforts awaited them, they would, at least, be those occurring on sh.o.r.e and under broad heavens, in pure, cool air, where the fetid atmosphere of ship's steerage quarters was unknown.

But alas! When the dense fog lifted, and the sun with diffidence peeped through its grey and watery veil, the sight that met the eyes of the expectant argonauts was grand but not rea.s.suring. Mountains rose to wondrous heights above and on all sides of them, while those directly in front, and barring them from their desired route and destination in sheer contrariety loomed heaven-high, as though they would rend the azure sky with their jagged and snowy peaks. Steep and precipitous rose the sides of those giant hills directly from the water's edge except where, at the foot of the Grand Canyon, trending northward, a small tract of wet and boggy land dejectedly spread itself. Between this and the anch.o.r.ed vessel upon the decks of which stood the thousand would-be miners the waters of old Lynn rose and fell with an ocean's pulsing, at the same time quietly moving in their accustomed way among the beach sands and shingle. No soothing lap of the waters against the sides of the vessel consoled these unromantic men. There were no docks or wharves at Skagway. The immense ship's cargo must be unloaded into small boats or hastily built scows to be towed ash.o.r.e over the shallow waters. It was the beginning of a gigantic undertaking, and many, hearing of a more desirable landing-spot and a quicker, easier mountain pa.s.s further on, kept with the ship to Dyea. But the same low and lazily lapping waters surrounded them as at Skagway. Tides rose and fell, and, at their own will, fogs settled and lifted.

By turns rain came, winds blew, and the sun shone, the latter in a subdued and apparently reluctant manner, as in winter on the sh.o.r.es of old Puget.

At this stage of affairs there was no further postponement of an evil day possible, and the remaining voyagers with their freight were hustled on sh.o.r.e with as much expedition as was permissible with a few barges, flat-bottomed fishing boats, and Indian canoes.

With their faraway homes behind them, and the top of lowering mountains often hidden by storm-clouds before them, these hundreds of daring argonauts faced the hardships of a trail, and life in an Alaskan mountain wilderness; their own backs and those of a few pack animals being the only means of transporting many tons of necessary supplies into the vast interior to which they journeyed.

To say that the courage of no man failed at the prospect would be untrue; but none liked to appear to his fellows to weaken, and notwithstanding the disheartening outlook, all set to work with a will until the hold of the great ship was entirely empty and her waterline had risen many feet above the ripples of Lynn.

The scene on sh.o.r.e was a repet.i.tion of that on the neighboring beach at Skagway, separated from it, however, by glittering peaks, the snows of which were melted daily by the sun and warm wind and found their way in streams down ravines and canyons, across glaciers and around boulders, dropping lower and still lower to the moraines near salt water.

Busy indeed was the scene now presented. Colonies of canvas tents were grouped upon the beaches close above the high water mark where the outfits of the travelers had been hastily dumped. Camp fires crackled and Indian fishermen traded fresh salmon for tobacco; but the tired and already mud-bedraggled prospectors slept heavily upon the damp, cold ground when too much exhausted to proceed further with their "packing."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The scene on sh.o.r.e was a repet.i.tion of that on the neighboring beach at Skagwan_]

The race was now on. With many it was a race to their death. On sight of the struggle at closer range, men formed themselves into groups or partnerships, thinking thus to simplify and make easier the crossing with their heavy outfits these tremendous mountains. In some instances this was a wise precaution, but in many more cases it was followed by failure to work harmoniously together, and profanity, bad feeling, and quarreling ensued.

Like fish in their native element, or vampires living off others, so the fat and rubicund-visaged owners of the bulky, black barrels before mentioned, flourished on the needs, discouragements and extremity of their brothers. Booths and shacks were expeditiously erected above their barrels dumped out upon the sands, counters and rude seats were provided, while flaring, staring cloth signs were flung out informing all that this was "The Shelter", "Tommy's Place", or "Your Own Fireside", in order to allure the cold, weary and disheartened travelers into the saloons. Here, in exchange for their money, they were given poisonous and adulterated liquors, imbibing which, with empty stomachs and discouraged hearts, they became ill-natured and selfish, as well as in a chronic state of internal drought.

At Skagway the army of "stampeders" swarmed up into the mountains.

Following the Skagway River northward up the Grand Canyon, their difficult trail crossed and recrossed the bed of the stream many times.

With small trees "corduroy" bridges were hastily thrown down in spots made impa.s.sable by bogs and the continued tread of hundreds of hurrying feet. With quick, impatient axe strokes men struck at overhanging and obstructing trees and vines. On all sides hung huge boulders and cliffs like pouting, protruding lips, as if the mountains had been shaken into shape by some subterrane force and resented even yet their rough treatment. Mosses hung from tree trunks, and vines thickly blanketed the rocks and ledges between which dashed sparkling waterfalls in haste to join the Skagway below. It mattered not if the hot noonday sun at times entered these fastnesses; it served only to cheer the hearts of little birds and animals, and bring to pestiferous life millions of mosquitoes and flies to torment both day and night the unfortunate toilers on the White Pa.s.s Trail.

These toilers worked in desperation. Their mad haste was infectious. Men literally tumbled over each other on the trail in their eagerness to put the Pa.s.ses behind them. Every man carried strapped upon his back as much of a load as it was possible for him to carry, and often times more, with the not infrequent result that they dropped beneath their packs on the trail. In like manner they loaded the animals they drove before them, and here was exhibited man's awful inhumanity to the dumb brutes.

Pack horses, mules and dogs, loaded to top-heaviness and cinched until one could almost hear their bones crack, climbed, straining, struggling, panting, wild eyed and steaming from over-exertion under the lash of angry and profane drivers, until they sank to their haunches, helpless and exhausted, in some quagmire. Such common misfortune necessitated the unloading of the poor beast at the loss of time and patience, not only of his own driver, but those following, as any obstruction to this narrow trail was greeted with extreme disfavor.

Language both bad and bitter was hourly exchanged between men on this strenuous stampede to the Klond.y.k.e in the fall of '97. Animosities were born which die only when hearts in men's bosoms are forever stilled.

Feuds were here originated, which if not settled with firearms were ended in ways as deadly afterwards.

Conditions on the Chilkoot were identical. "Tenderfeet" were there as tender, and the way as rough, even if a trifle shorter than that over the White Pa.s.s. Nor were the tempers of the Chilkoot argonauts better than those of their neighbors.

One root of the matter was not far to seek. Had they been content to leave liquors untouched, nerves would have been less often jarred, patience would not have become so soon exhausted, while brains would have been clearer to plan, foresee, and execute. Not every man drank liquors. There were numbers whose strongest stimulant was the fragrant coffee, or water from the mountain springs; and these were among the quiet, helpful ones who plodded patiently and industriously; lending a kindly hand to some unfortunate fallen comrade or animal along the rock-bound trail. They, too, were the ones who soonest reached the first objective point of their journey--the end of mountaineering at Bennett, from which place their boats would carry them into the Klond.y.k.e.

Among hundreds of others two travelers one day trudged with heavy packs upon their backs, each following his loaded mule, which, once placed in the long line of men and animals, wending their way toward the mountains, would not, in self-defense choose to deviate from that course.

Both men were strong, of middle age, and with money and supplies enough to take them into the gold fields. After landing at Skagway they decided to go into partnership, chiefly for the purpose of receiving a.s.sistance.

Little thought was given by either to the help he was to render his partner; and although they had now been but a few days together, each had already reminded the other of some fancied duty to himself; which act, often repeated, will sometimes stir up unpleasantly the muddy waters of men's souls. After having gotten a late start from Skagway, they had gone only about two miles up the Canyon when both men and mules seemed too much f.a.gged to proceed further without rest, and as night was close upon them they decided to make camp.

Turning to the west side of the Canyon they moved laboriously among fallen logs, boulders and driftwood, and through the tangle of vines, ferns, and foliage which also barred their way.

When they were well out of sight of their trail companions they found themselves close under a huge wall of rock in the steep mountain side which made a quiet spot for camping.

Selecting an open s.p.a.ce between trees, the packs of all were deposited upon the ground. Men and mules now breathed deeply, and rested strained muscles, so chafed beneath the heavy and unaccustomed packs.

"Give the mules enough rope, but fasten 'em tight, Smithson," said one, "we don't want 'em wanderin' away and we havin' to hunt 'em up. Time is too precious on this trail, and there are too many fellows around wishin' fur just such mules. We'd have a dandy time hiking it over the Pa.s.s with our four tons of grub all on our backs, wouldn't we?"

"It would take us a year, sure," was the reply, "and may as it is. I know one thing. I'm goin' to take a drink before continuing these proceedings, and I advise you to do the same," pulling a flat bottle from his "jumper" pocket and putting it to his lips.

For answer his companion dropped the sticks he had been gathering for a fire, and produced a duplicate bottle which he quickly appropriated in like manner.

To an old miner, inured to such life, the work of pitching camp here would have been slight, but to these men it was a new experience.

Cooking upon a camp fire, sleeping upon a bed of boughs, cut from the thicket when exhausted after new and hard labor was bad enough; but when to this was added the almost unendurable stinging and singing of the ever present mosquitoes it was a thousand fold worse. A good fire and smoke must be kept going all night, and by lying close beside it they hoped to get some rest from the insects.

Before sleeping the two men planned their next day's work. They would leave everything and ride back to Skagway for another load of supplies, getting all here under the rock before proceeding further up the trail.