"Well, that sounds as though some one were writing at the big fur monopolies and the way they handle the Indians. Las Casas says that his Church thought they owned all the middle part of this continent. The Hudson's Bay Company started in to own all the northern part of it. I can't see the difference. Las Casas says the discovery and conquest of the American dominions has wrought ruin to Spain as a nation. The results were 'disastrous to her power.' I am only a boy, and don't know much about things, but I know perfectly well the fur trade is based on injustice. I consider it the most ignoble form of business in the world. I think it is pulling down the Indians—as the archdeacon said in his sermon, they were more manly and self-respecting before the traders came. If the government of Canada claims to be so good, it might look into the injustice done to the native people by some of the traders, both the old companies and the independents. I have read somewhere, 'No right is or can be founded on injustice.' So what rights have they got?

"The Spaniards were after gold, and these big companies are after fur. They have both relied on keeping the natives down. That's why they are so jealous of outsiders getting any knowledge about their ways.

"I have heard that an Indian always pays his debts to the trader. On this trip I heard a man say that the big companies never forgive an Indian a debt in all his life. He would not dare to let his debt run if he could pay it, because if he did he would starve.

"I wonder if old Mr. Las Casas was any relation to the archdeacon here. They both preach a good deal alike, it seems to me. He says, 'The system of oppression and cruelty in dealing with the natives makes them curse the name of God and our holy religion.... For should God decree the destruction of Spain it may be seen it is because of our destruction of the Indians, and that His justice may be made apparent.'

"Well, I guess that will be all I will write out of the book. I was just thinking that what the Spaniards did in getting gold was something like what the white men are doing to-day in getting fur in this northern country. It never did look good to me.

"But though the Indians don't always remember everything they hear in church, I believe the Church is honester, whether it is the English Church or the Catholic, or any of them, because they haven't anything to get out of it, so far as I can see, and the traders have. I don't think I shall very much enjoy seeing fine furs worn by ladies in my own country after this—I know where they come from and what they cost. I wonder what Las Casas would say if he were here.

"A good many Scotchmen are through this northern country, and some Scandinavians. I read in a book by Mr. Stewart that you could tell the Scotchman even in a half-breed because he always says 'boy' and 'whatever' the way the Highlanders do—no matter how old you are a Highlander always calls you 'boy.' He says the Bishop of Saskatchewan had a half-breed boy working for him who always called him 'Boy my Lord.' That seems odd to me! And then about their saying 'whatever'—a Scotch half-breed said, 'We use it because we could not express ourselves without it whatever.' And then he said, 'Is it not correct whatever?' And after a while he said he could see no objection to that word whatever. A Highlander always says 'whatever,' and you can't keep him from it. I noticed that in some of the posts we came through.

"A woman here was sixty years old, and she married a carpenter, and he took her money and started a sawmill. They haven't got any sawmill now.

"A good many people here talk about other people. I have noticed that in almost any small place, but I think it is worse up here in the North. I suppose they get lonesome and have to talk.

"Another thing is, they drink so much up in this country whenever they get a chance. They don't keep their gallon of Scotch whisky, which is supposed to last them a year, but sit down and drink it up in two days. So they get out of whisky and some people get crazy for it. In this same book by Mr. Stewart he tells about some men at one of the trading-posts of the Mackenzie who didn't have any liquor, but the summer before there had been a party of scientists there who had left some insects, bugs, and snakes and things, done up in alcohol. Some other traders visited this agent, and he was sorry not to have anything to give them to drink. So he thought he would pour off this alcohol from the bugs and things. Still, he thought it might be poison, so he tried it on a half-breed dog-driver. It did not kill him, so he served it to his friends, and said nothing about it, and they all thought it was very good! I believe this is a true story, because so many things happen up in this country that we don't hear about at home.

"Monday, August 11th.—This is on the steamship Schwatka, and we are bound up the Yukon! We said good-by early this morning to the good archdeacon. It was dark when he heard the dogs howling, and knew a boat was coming, so he called us and we hurried and got dressed, and just got on this boat in time. She isn't towing any barge, so ought to make good time up to Dawson. We were sorry to leave the archdeacon, but we are glad to be on our way home.

"We get four meals a day on the Schwatka, and very good ones. John is happy! We think we will all put on a little flesh before we get home. Uncle Dick is writing and going over his notes. John is making his map. Jesse is reading. So I write.

"Tuesday, August 12th.—At 1.30 in the morning we made Circle City, which, as everybody knows, is right on the Arctic Circle, or was supposed to be. This was the first time Uncle Dick could get out any word. He sent out a message by wireless which will be relayed to Skagway and cabled to Valdez. He said in about ten days we would be at Skagway. Our folks will be mighty glad to hear from us—and how glad we'll be to get home! We are still inside the limit of the time schedule which Uncle Dick set for us. Now we think we are safe to finish the journey inside our schedule. Pretty good, we all think.

"Wednesday, August 13th.—At 8.30 this morning got to Eagle, which is an old Alaska settlement and was once an army post. There is an Anglican mission here. The scenery around here is far beyond anything that was on the Mackenzie River. We all like the Yukon better than the Mackenzie. Some Church people going out on the boat from here.

"I don't know how the Klondikers got up the Yukon after they had come over the Rat Portage; but Dawson is three days above Fort Yukon by steamboat. If they tracked or poled or rowed up I bet it took them a good deal more than three days.

"Uncle Dick has asked me to set down everything I see at Dawson, which is the big gold-camp that caused the Klondike stampede in 1897; so I think I will do that the best I can."



XVI

DAWSON, THE GOLDEN CITY

Rob's diary went on as he had promised, for during the time that they lay between boats at the once famous gold-camp there was abundant opportunity for them to get about and see pretty much everything there was worth seeing. Rob's record runs day by day as previously:

"Thursday, August 14th.—Dawson at 4 A.M. Our boat does not go any farther. We reserved passage on the Norcom for White Pass. She will sail the evening of next Saturday. On British soil again.

"This place has had twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants in boom times, but there are only about twelve hundred people here now, I believe. A good many people are starting off for Chisana district, up the White River, where they say there is a gold strike. All this country has been crazy over gold strikes for a good deal more than twenty years.

"We went to a hotel here and got baths and got barbered up, which makes a change in our looks. We got a few things to wear which the archdeacon could not give us.

"Friday, August 15th.—Went up the famous Klondike River, which comes in here. Half of it is clean and the other half dirty. Saw no more pick-and-shovel work. Everything is run by the big dredges owned by companies, which do the work of hundreds of men. They thaw out the ground now with steam-pipes which they drive down in, and then turn in steam. Then they rip out the ground down twenty feet with the big scoops of the dredges. They just have water enough to float the dredges. Everything is worked and washed right on the dredge. It beats placer mining a whole lot. But a few men can work one of these dredges, and then a few men get all the money they turn out.

"Walked on up to Bonanza and some of the famous creeks above the dredges. They are using hydraulic mining up there, another wholesale way. Saw no individual mining.

"We boys ate supper with a lot of French people who are working 'lays' on some claims which are owned by other people on the hillsides up toward Bonanza. The bed-rock, where the rich gold is, is about the middle of the hill, and runs straight through, and they are following through right along the bed-rock three hundred feet below the surface. They have 'drifted' in here, and they are using hydraulic mining, too. They seemed a jolly lot. They have a woman cooking for their crew, and asked us to eat with them—the best they had. We could not talk much in their language, and they did not understand very much of ours.

"We walked down from the mountains, four and a half miles, in an hour and five minutes, and were not tired.

"Saturday, August 16th.—The Commissioner of Yukon Territory—who is about the same as a governor would be in a Territory of the United States—asked us to luncheon to-day, because he knew of Uncle Dick. So we all went and had a very pleasant time. This is the Government House, and it has the British flag over it, of course. Everybody was very nice to us, and other ladies and gentlemen asked us a lot of questions, and we did of them, too. We felt very much at home here, and friendly. The Governor, or Commissioner, used to be American himself. He came up here in the early gold days.

"One gentleman at the luncheon told a good many stories of the old times. He told how cold it got sometimes. He said once they made some candles out of condensed milk. They sold them to a saloon-keeper, for a joke, because every one wants candles in the winter-time, but the saloon-keeper could not light these candles at all! He said there used to be a young man in Dawson they called 'The Evaporated Kid' because he was so thin. He said, too, there was a runaway express agent who had absconded from somewhere in America, and when he got to Dawson he hadn't anything except one painting, a copy of a celebrated picture in Europe. He sold it for a half-interest in a claim, which proved to be worth $60,000. He went back to the States and gave himself up, and got a month in jail after he had paid what he had stolen. Then he came back to Alaska and has made a good citizen! He has always kept the old man who sold the interest in this claim. Of course they wouldn't tell us the name of this man.

"They say the best place for hunting big game is to go up the Pelly River and then up the MacMillan River. White Horse is a good place to start from. There are sheep up in there, of two kinds, and moose and grizzly bear and caribou. September is the best time to go in there, but it would take about a month, and a fellow would have to be careful not to get caught in the snow. The Mount McKinley country is even better as a big-game place, so they tell me. I wish we boys could go in there some time.

"They used to get all kinds of money in here in the early days. This same gentleman told me he once had an interest in a claim where they took out $430,000 on a fraction of a claim which was only eighty feet by four hundred. He says the dredge people have found that they can work much poorer dirt than eight dollars a yard, which would pay a shovel-man. One man can only rock about two and a half yards a day. He can sluice about twice that. A dredge, working four men, works from 2,400 to 3,000 tons a day. So you see why dredges are in here now. He said nearly all the men who got rich easy lost their money. There was a lucky Swede who married an extravagant woman, and she spent all his money—several hundred thousand dollars—right away; but he only laughed and said, 'I'll strike it again pretty soon.' But he never has. He says there were a good many hundreds of men who held on to their stakes and went out with 50,000 to 100,000 dollars each. It must have been exciting times in this little old town! Very quiet now.

"All the pictures of Dawson show the big white scar on a mountain-side where a landslip took off the whole side of the mountain many years ago. The Indians say it buried a village at its foot. This big hole in the mountain is right where you can see it down the street. You can't help seeing it if you go to Dawson.

"I was much interested about the first man who discovered this country. They don't all tell the same story about it. The Yukon Territory and Alaska are so much alike, and the people settling them have been so much alike, that it seems they are about the same. We crossed the international boundary between them away back at Rampart House. From there to here, on both sides of that line, men have been coming into this country, no one knows how long.

"Jack McQueston, so Mr. Ogilvie says in his book about the Yukon country, established Fort Reliance, six miles below where Dawson is, in 1871. Then Arthur Harper came in and joined him in trading. One time some Indians got hold of their rat poison, and two old women and one girl died. That made the Indians sore, so the traders had to pay for the women. They said the two old women were no good, but they would pay ten skins for the young woman, about six dollars. The Indians said that was all right! It's a funny country.

"After that a man by the name of Mayo came in with Harper and McQueston, and in 1886, so this book says, they went down to Forty-Mile River, where they found gold already discovered. It was McQueston that founded Circle City, but it is not really on the line—nearly a degree in latitude south of it.

"Harper and McQueston seemed to move all around everywhere. They said they found color on the Peace River and on the Liard, but did not find anything on the Mackenzie. But on the Peel River they found good prospects, and some on the Porcupine also. They were all over that country, where we've been.

"This Harper party came over the Rat Portage, too, the way we did, and they describe it about the way we would. But that was long before the Klondike rush, for they got to Fort Yukon on July 15, 1873. The Klondike was not known then, nor until more than twenty years later.

"I guess that the man who really ought to have the credit for finding the gold in the Klondike country was Bob Henderson. He was not trading so much as prospecting. Besides, he got his start about the way most prospectors do—an Indian showed him some pieces of gold, and showed him the place where he found them. Anyhow, that is how Harper found some gold in the Tanana country. But Harper, though he was around in this country twenty-four years, never found any big strike. He died in Arizona in 1897. Jack McQueston stayed in later, and everybody remembered him as a generous trader.

"They say that the first gold to come out of the Yukon came from the Tanana River in 1880. A Mr. Holt of the Alaska Commercial Company took the first party over the Dyea Pass and down the Yukon, in 1875. They say a very little gold came out in 1882 and 1883, but nobody had ever heard of the Klondike then.

"McQueston liked the Stewart River better than any place for a long while. They got gold in a great many streams running into the Yukon, and found it on nine creeks as early as 1894. They sent out about $400,000 that year. There were a good many miners all along the river even in 1894—seventy-five miners in one party of stampeders. But still no one had heard of the Klondike, although they had prospected between the Yukon and the Arctic Ocean and far down to the mouth of the Yukon, and about everywhere else!

"Harper and McQueston had been on the Klondike, but did not find anything at first. Bob Henderson had as much nerve as anybody. They went up on Indian River, which runs parallel to the Klondike, about fifteen miles away. Henderson worked on Quartz Creek, they say, and he had to thaw out his ground with log fires the way they used to do, so he did not make much. Then he worked on Australia Creek. Of course these men all moved around a good deal. He only got about 600 or 700 dollars on the creek where he was working, so he moved over to a stream which he thought ran into the Klondike, and he called this Gold Bottom. He got the color here.

"Bob Henderson met George W. Carmac, and he offered to share his new strikes up on Gold Bottom, but he drew the line at the Indians Carmac was living with! So Carmac did not go out at first. But Carmac and two Indians, Charley and George, did go up the Klondike, and up Bonanza after a little, about a mile above the mouth. They were looking after logs for lumber. But they found color up in there. The Indians didn't care much about it. But after Bob told them about strikes higher up in the country, these Indians and Carmac went farther up Bonanza. They all claim to have found the first gold there. Henderson would not let them stake on Gold Bottom because he didn't like the Indians, so they turned back, because they had found ten cents to the pan on Bonanza. They found more gold on Bonanza, and so Carmac staked there on August 17, 1896, the Discovery claim and Number One Below Discovery, each 500 feet long, up and down the creek. They tell me that these claims ran the full width of the valley bottom—that is, from base to base of the hill on either side.

"Then some Indians staked above and below, Tagish Charley on Number Two below, and Skookum Jim on Number One above. They had about a cartridgeful of gold when they got down to the mouth of the Klondike, and they still thought there was more money in lumber than in mining.

"Everybody got wind of it now, and there were a lot of people in this country already, before the Klondike news got out. There were twenty-five men looking for Henderson's Creek, and about that many looking for the Carmac claims.

"So Henderson didn't get any of the rich strike on Bonanza, although he had told Carmac about it. He always said Carmac ought to have told him, so he could have got in there, too. Henderson couldn't get out to Forty-Mile in time to record his claim on Gold Bottom, until Andrew Hunker got in on the creek below him, and he recorded his Discovery claim and had the creek named after him—Hunker Creek. But Henderson had cut a blaze on a tree and marked this creek as Gold Bottom Creek long before that.

"So they gave a discovery claim to Carmac on Bonanza Creek, and another on Gold Bottom or Hunker Creek to this man Hunker. So Henderson, who had been in here two years, and who had told everybody about what he had found and wanted everybody to share in it, got only a very bad claim, after all. Hard luck.

"I wish I could talk with those old-timers and the Indians who were first in this gold country; but Mr. Ogilvie did talk with them all, and I think what he sets down is perfectly true.

"What I was rather surprised to learn was that all this country was known as a gold country so long before the Klondike was heard of. Most people think that the Klondike strike brought the first stampedes into the Yukon Valley, but that is not the case at all. So I thought I would set this down, to have it straight when we all got older. As time goes by these things seem to get crooked, and sometimes men get credit who do not deserve it.

"Well, I have heard a good many stories about wild times in Dawson, but I have not any place to set that down here, nor to tell stories about getting rich quick. We only wanted to keep track of the early times in the wild country. So I guess this will do.

"Well, here we go, off for home!—On board the steamer Norcom, bound up the Yukon. Left at 9 P.M., after saying good-by to all our friends in Dawson. We liked Dawson, but found it pretty quiet.

"Sunday, August 17th.—We are doing about five miles an hour. Current very swift. At noon saw the Stewart valley. Smith's store on the bank. Saw some boats stampeding for the White River strikes. Passed the mouth of the White River. Saw a new boat full of men turning up that river on the stampede. It must be like old times. Well, all right—we're going out.

"Monday, August 18th.—Slow plugging up the current. Made Selkirk, an old trading-post and mining hangout, at 2 P.M. The scenery here is much finer than on the Mackenzie. I don't know if tourists will ever come on any of these rivers. It goes a little slow.

"A good many wood-yards along the banks of the river. Quite a business selling wood to the steamboats, which burn a lot. They showed us the line where the winter dog-stages carry the mail to Dawson. Someone showed us the O'Brien cabin, where four murders were committed. One white man and three Indians were hanged for it.

"Tuesday, August 19th.—We all got up pretty early, although John was sleepy and Jesse a little cross. I told them we ought to see the boat line up through the Five-Finger Rapids. But, pshaw! there wasn't much about it. We could run these rapids, I am sure, in our canoe, with no danger at all. Of course, going up the current is stiff, so at the bottom of the chute the steamboat takes on a wire cable, and it winds around a drum with a donkey-engine, and that pulls the boat up the rapids. They are not much like some of the rapids we have seen.

"Well, it's twenty years since the Klondike rush, and we've been over a good deal of the country that the old-timers saw. Here we come to White Horse, and there we shall take the railroad over the Skagway Pass, where so many men had such awful times trying to get from the salt water into the Yukon Valley.

"I don't think I'll write any more notes, because when you get to a railroad everybody knows about it all anyhow. John and Jesse and I feel pretty blue, after all. Our trip is the same as done when we get to White Horse, and we are sorry. When we once know we can get home all safe, we sort of feel homesick for the rivers and mountains, too. You know how that is.

"I don't know that we would want to do it all over again, but we've had a fine time. I think John and Jesse are both a little taller. Uncle Dick says I am, too.

"But it will be fine to get home again. Uncle Dick says he is going to write and telegraph from White Horse once more. So good-by to the Yukon. And good-by to the Rat and the Mackenzie, too! Fine doings!"



XVII

WHAT UNCLE DICK THOUGHT

Our party of explorers, who by this time felt entirely civilized, went about the streets of White Horse with a certain air of superiority over the individuals who had never been farther north than this railroad town. They were the heroes of the hour, with their tales of the Rat Portage, over which no party had come in in recent years, and each of them had to tell to many listeners the story of this or that incident of the long trail. Old graybearded men listened with respect to what these young boys had to say, and a newspaper man was very glad to make a copy of some of Rob's careful diary, which he now began to value more and more.

All too soon they were to leave this place and to pass up over practically the original Klondike trail which came from the salt water over the White Pass and down the headwaters of the Yukon to this point. They did not visit the once famous White Horse Rapids, where so many of the boats of the Klondikers came to grief, but declared it would only bore them, since they had seen waters so much more imposing! The local inhabitants laughed at this, but admitted that many of the teeth of this once dangerous water had been extracted since the early days.

As Rob had said, Uncle Dick took time here to do a little of his correspondence. He sent out a message by wire once more to the families of his companions, and to this added a letter which he said would go north to Valdez with the boys themselves, in case he himself received news at Skagway which would make it impossible for him to accompany them to their homes.

One letter he wrote to the company which had sent him as its representative into this northern country, in the following terms:

"GENTLEMEN,—I have arrived at the head of the rails on the Yukon to-day, completing the round from Edmonton to White Horse safely within the three months' estimate handed you.

"I have investigated the transportation possibilities in much of this upper country. It is possible that a railroad north from Athabasca Landing might for a time prove profitable. I do not myself believe to any extent in the agricultural possibilities of that upper country. A few men will be able to subsist there. Some grain can be raised in many of the valleys of that upper country. The seasons are, however, so short, and the difficulties of permanent settlement so many, that while in my estimation the railroad would be a benefit for a time to a few individuals, it would not be a profitable permanent enterprise far to the northward of its present terminus. I regard the Peace River valley as about its permanent agricultural north, although many traders and boomers may dispute that.

"As to the feasibility of a railway line connecting the Yukon to the Mackenzie, I can see no reason whatever for contemplating the matter seriously. In my passage across the summit on the Rat Portage we found some squared timbers which had been prepared there with a view to laying a sort of tramway. The idea was long since abandoned by the Hudson's Bay Company, which once purposed it. I cannot say whether or not they intended to use steam transport. Since then the country has wholly lapsed into its original wild and bleak character. It is, in my opinion, and will and should remain, a wilderness. Its resources would not in any wise support any considerable transportation enterprise permanently.

"The companions who went with me on this trip report well and sound, and I commend them for the manner in which they withstood the hardships, at times very considerable.

"My subsequent and more complete report will be made at the offices of the Company at a later date.

"Respectfully submitted. "RICHARD MCINTYRE."

The second letter was addressed to the mother of one of our young adventurers, and in this Uncle Dick wrote in rather less formal fashion:

"DEAR SISTER,—Here we are at the railroad, and within a couple of hours will be steaming out across the mountains for Skagway. All safe and sound. Never saw boys eat the way these do, and cannot say whether or not we will have enough money to get them home.

"Nothing much has happened since we left, as the cow-puncher said when he killed the ranch-manager in the owner's absence. We have made our trip around in two or three days' less time than I had estimated, but, looking back over it, I cannot say just how it all happened. We certainly have been busy traveling. In ninety days we will have finished what is estimated to be 5,280 miles, under all sorts of transport—steam, paddle, sail, and good old North American foot-work.

"The boys are all safe and sound, bigger and better than when I took them over, so I don't see what you can say against your erring brother after this.

"How did the youngsters behave? Well, I'll tell you when I see you. They were fine, and that's all about it. They send their love, and so do I, and some or all of us will see you with the first boat north from Skagway. Rob has a full diary, and John a good sketch map, so they'll be loaded for you all right.

"Do I renew my promise never to take them on another trip? Of course I remember that promise, but can I manage to keep it, now that these chaps are such good travelers? I don't know. Well, suppose we talk that over when we meet again?

"From your affectionate brother "DICK."

THE END



TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetter's errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent.

2. In the list of illustrations, the page reference for the second illustration was incorrect; this has been changed to refer to the correct facing page.