USA > Alaska > Trailing and camping in Alaska > Part 19
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copper properties, and return to civilization through' Skolai Pass and by the descent of the Nizina, Chit- ina and Copper Rivers. Their boat capsized in the Nizina River, and a wail went forth as the family drifted around the bend of the river. All were lost, except a Mr. Williams, who was also in the boat at the time, and who swam ashore. Some prospectors buried the bodies of the woman and child, but that of Montgomery never was found. Montgomery and I had descended the Copper River together in 1901.
The other summers that I spent in Alaska were not devoted to hunting or prospecting, as my time was occupied in working my copper properties near the coast. Ben Price, a good pistol shot, killed a bear near my camp with his Frontier revolver at a distance of one hundred yards. It was during that summer of 1907 that a man shot down six other men from ambush in Keystone Canyon. This was done in a dispute over a railroad right of way, and in an effort to keep railroads out of the interior- that is railroads which would be going in for the purpose of becoming public carriers, and whose owners were not building the lines to their own properties. The present indications are that Alaska is destined to be bottled up for the benefit of a few. 1907
In 1903 seven persons attempted to float down the Nizina River in a small boat, and four of the
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seven were drowned. One woman swam down stream a long distance, but finally sank. A little boy wept when assisted into the boat, and he, too, was drowned. A man was going down the river on a raft with his two dogs. The dogs returned the fol- lowing day, but the man never was heard from. Another was drowned near Taral, and another lost his life in an airhole in the ice, during the early part of the spring. Bundy, a colored man, was drowned in the Tazlina River where Gokona Charley had been drowned the year before.
In 1898 four men were exploring and prospect- ing in the Chitina country. At the foot of a high gravel bank, a stone that rolled down the embank- men broke a leg of one of the party. These heroes bandaged the broken limb, threw away all unneces- sary articles, improvised a litter with a blanket and carried their wounded companion out of that coun- try. One carried the scanty provisions and cut the way with a hatchet, while the other two carried and rested at intervals. They crossed dangerous rivers, waded through swamps, climbed over hills, and were days in doing it. They used up all of their supplies and were nearly exhausted when they arrived on the bank of the Copper River. There they secured a boat, took the invalid down the river, and placed him on board a steamer bound for home, where, no doubt, he remembered his heroic deliverers and their gallant struggle with gratitude. Five years
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after that incident, a few picks and shovels were found where they had left them, and where valu- able placer diggings were later discovered.
Young men who went to Alaska desired to secure fortunes that their sweethearts might be insured a home and comfort, to enjoy matrimonial bliss. Contentment constitutes happiness and not money. Away among the nooks of the hills and forests it may be found. There where the vines lovingly en- twine the cabin; where flowers display their smiles to the morning sunlight; where the babbling brook murmurs love, and the birds sing it in the trees, if love dwell in the cabin, there also live the million- aires of happiness.
I was accosted by a young man who had returned from a summer's prospecting. He evidently was extremely happy, and slapping me on the shoulder announced his success in locating some good ground and selling it for a reasonable sum.
" Come up to my room and I will tell you about it ! " said he.
In the room he threw down a lot of unopened letters he had received, and picking up a neatly ad- dressed one he exclaimed :
" Ha, ha! That's from the best girl that ever lived! She caused me to come north, and I have suffered and starved, fought and bled with the devil of the wild, for her sake. I was financially bank- rupt and needed only enough to care for her in
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proportion to my love. I desired so much to place myself on an equal plane with her, in order that she might refer to her property as ours. I did not want her property, but marriage should be an equal part- nership, and I hoped to be equal to her standard; but she seemed not to understand. Oh, how I suf- fered because of a love that I feared I could not make happy !
" Many times have I awakened with tears in my eyes, because I was not in a position to care for her, as she had been raised. Sometimes I thought she did not care for me at heart, for never once did she express a line of sympathy for me-not one line of anxiety or caution, although she must have known I was risking my life for her.
" Apparently she did not care sufficiently for me to study the map of Alaska for ten short minutes, so that she might talk intelligently of the country when I had returned three thousand miles to visit her. The worst of all was, that she never encouraged me to do a thing. Mind you, I did not need her sym- pathetic encouragement, but desired so earnestly to see those noble principles in her. A man's life is in the hands of the woman he loves, and she can elevate his morals and stimulate him with encouraging in- fluence, or she can, by the absence of such influence, drive him to the depths of despondency and possibly to despair.
" Because of her indifference I doubted. I did not
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turn to drink, but to this path I bridle-reined myself from the possibility of following other trails to dis- sipation, and in consideration of my deep love for her I threw myself into the wilds of the frontier, beyond all temptation.
" Although she is refined and educated, she has never quoted one line of prose or poetry in all our correspondence. Despite it all, I felt somehow that she cared for me. If I had been quite sure of her love, and had had the necessary home of my own to have made her happy, I should have been the hap- piest man on earth. Now, at last, although I fear she has waited long, I possess enough to make us a little earthly heaven. Please be indulgent while I read what she has written in this, another of her all- too-short missives."
His face was all aglow with hope and animation, while he picked up the neatly addressed letter and carefully opened it, as though it were almost too sacred to mutilate. I asked myself : How could love exist without expressive sympathy and anxiety, inter- est and encouragement for proof? Direct words of " I love you," are too easily said to be sufficient proof to one so deeply in earnest, whose love was so imperative that it demanded absolutely moral and refined expression in exchange for his affection.
While admiring the carefully addressed envelope that indicated the neatness, precision and ideality of the writer I was forced also to admire his manhood,
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nerve and morality that had induced him to throw the current of his life away from all temptation, in her behalf. As he had intimated, she could not pos- sibly understand. Before he began reading, he added, as if interpreting my thoughts :
" Whenever I looked for that proof of her love I met with disappointment. If she had taken an in- terest in my life, which meant so much to both of us, instead of being silently-and I might say stolidly ---- indifferent, my doubts never would have existed, to have handicapped my success, and I would not have cared for money through which to obtain happi- ness."
As he read quietly, his face gradually changed from an expression of joy to one of anxiety, and presently he murmured aloud :
"And-she-really-did-love-me!"
His face then quickly turned white, and he tightly crumpled the letter as he-dry-eyed-stared into vacancy with an expression of intense agony. I watched his finger-nails sink deeply into the flesh of his clinched hand, and deeper and deeper they sank, but no feeling was there, for all sensitiveness was in his heart and it was bleeding. In steady, monoto- nous and steel-like tones he exclaimed :
" Too late ! Too late !"
I arose to depart, saying that I would drop in at some other time. When closing the door, I glanced back and saw that the chalk-like face was down in
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the crook of his elbow, on the table, and I heard him murmur :
" Too late ! Too late ! " As I walked away I asked myself : " Did she love him ? " I doubted.
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CHAPTER XXVII
" Round brightly burning campfires, they would sit and spit and spit,
'While the tales of some old liars, or perchance a bit of wit,
Would cause the laugh to circle; then for encores they would call,
For campfire laughs and stories are the heartiest of them all."
HERE are a few reminiscences and campfire stories :
A small husband and his very large wife attempted to cross the Valdez glacier in 1898, by the man pull- ing a hand-sled and the woman guiding. When nearly exhausted, the little man sat down on the sled and, wiping the sweat from his face, said:
"Mary, don't you wish you were back on the farm ? "
"No, I don't! It was Alaska, 'Alaska, if you could only get to Alaska you'd make your fortune; now, confound you, let's see you do it! Get in there and mush on! "
And with a sigh the poor little fellow replaced the collar over his head and "mushed on."
When an Alaska dog-driver addresses his dogs
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Telling Camp-fire Stories.
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by the word, "Mush," they readily understand that it means "Go!" If working, they pull harder when so addressed, and if in a tent, they go outside.
Two Irishmen were watching a dog-team pull. Observing the leader's actions when so addressed, one turned to his companion and said:
" Sure now, thot dorg Mush is a foin puller !"
" Faith, and they feed thim on the diet of mush, and it's the promise of it thot moiks thim pull," he answered.
It is related of an Alaska dog-driver that after driving a team of dogs all winter, he came down to Seattle, and entered a restaurant for breakfast. The waiter, as is customary, inquired " Mush ?" and the dog-driver, looking up in astonishment, seized his hat and walked out.
The same dog-driver was once lost on the glacier, and when asked why he didn't consult his compass, he answered:
" I threw the blamed thing away."
" Why did you do that ? " was asked.
" Because it wouldn't point north," he answered.
Prospectors generally are extensive travelers. A man by the name of Palmer went to Dawson in 1898, thence down the river 2000 miles to St. Michael's, thence to Nome, thence to Dutch Harbor, where he boarded an English vessel for Japan. He then went to Korea, and from there to the Philip-
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pines, where he prospected in the mountain districts; thence back to San Francisco, thence to Chicago, and in 1902 he camped with me in the Copper River country, Alaska.
When relating his experience, one night, while sit- ting by the campfire, he said that when he was a boy he had worked for a man in Missouri who paid him off in worthless bank-notes. When asked what he had done with the notes, he replied:
" Oh, I found some people down in the southern part of the state who could neither read nor write, so I spent 'em."
Palmer once bet five dollars with a stuttering kid that he could spit nearer than he to a mark, placed seven feet from a given line on which they should stand. The challenge was accepted, and the kid, toeing the line, made a commendable squirt. Pal- mer followed, and lying flat on the floor, with his toes on the line and his face within a foot of the mark, he began to pucker, with a certainty of win- ning the money. When the stuttering kid realized the trick, and also his danger of loss, he jumped up and began such a stuttering remonstrance that Pal- mer was compelled to laugh, and of course that de- stroyed his pucker, causing him to shoot wild of the mark and lose the wager.
Seattle, the city on the hills, the future gateway to half the world, is the winter rendezvous for the
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most fortunate prospectors. Here false friends await their return, and too often the inexperienced fellows fall'easy victims to the unprincipled vam- pires of humanity. They may be rich in pocket, but poor in experience with the outside world. Their years of isolation have caused them to forget and forgive, and now their hearts long for sociability.
They have left the dark recesses of the forests, the lonely canyons and hardships of the trail; and now the music of the deadfalls, the swirl of the dance, and the sociability of the lower strata of humanity are in such vivid contrast to the howl of the wolf- dog, the hoot of the owl, and the dying embers of the campfire, that their heads too often whirl in dizzy intoxication because of their new, bright and daz- zling surroundings. They meet false friends, but they care not, as their big hearts have long bled for companionship, and now their money is as free as the dashing silvery sprays on the mountain-sides, that flash like diamonds in Alaska's sunlight.
Three men who had just returned from the north were enjoying comfort in one of Seattle's hotels. One was an old-time prospector, in possession of all the peculiar expressions of his class; the second was a packer, who had been running a pack-train to the mines, and who could talk nothing but horse lore; and the third had been a sailor and a sea-captain most of his life, but had been caught in the gold rush, and had prospected for two years. They had
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come down together and were comparing notes of their experiences during their first forty-eight hours in the city.
" I say, fellers," said the prospector, "I've struck a lead! She's pure mineral gloss, a yard wide, with well-defined hangin' walls-pure glance, and a fissure vein runnin' square across the contact! She's in hard luck, and her mother's sick, and didn't I dig up? What's a hundred or two, anyway? Talk about valuable properties and lucky strikes ! I tell ye she's a beaut, and I'm goin' to locate accordin' to the rules of this deestrict."
Then the declaimer drew a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end and settled himself back for a smok- ing anticipation of future happiness.
"I caught a bronk myself," said the packer. " Met her down the trail, just below here, where a feller had her corraled, and he introjuced us, and as she was going home alone, and was sorter skittish- like and timid, I asked the privilege uv trottin' with her. Bust my cinch if she isn't slick as a mole, with neck uv a fawn and eyes uv an antelope. She's a thoroughbred, without a blemish, not even a wind- gall, and I said I'd put my dough on her when I fust threw the blanket across her wethers."
" I sighted a craft myself !" chimed in the sailor. " She was one uv the neatest sailors that ever flew canvas, and when spoken she heaved to and we hitched on, sorter-like; come to find out, she had lost
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her reck'ning and I put her on her course. When she found that my cargo was mineral, she advised me to take in sail and go a little slower. Shiver my mainmast if she wasn't a clipper fer yer glasses ! What's money, if ye don't do good with it? When called on by a ship in distress, answer, 'Aye, Aye, sir!' Them's my sentiments. But, by the way, Mr. Packer, was the bark ye were sailin' with, the one ye were alongside uv when ye passed the Diller Light-house ? "
" That wuz the filly I wuz trottin' with, and right thar wuz where we made the fust turn, and she wuz next the pole and close up !"
" The one with the top-gallant, and long canvas draggin'? "
" Yep; thar wuz most too much blanket."
" Pard, my sail's down and the anchor is over- board! Goin' to compute recknin' fer a few days, then tack ship on another course! My log says, we met the same vessel and she were a pirate! Yes, sir, a pirate ! "
" Do ye say that wuz the winner ye picked and lost yer scads ? "
"Yep, and I say mor'n that! I say let's enter some snug harbor and drink to each other's storms and head-winds."
They shook hands and then concluded to take the miner with them. When awakened from his medi- tations, he said :
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" I'll go, gents, fer I think I've been working the same drift, but fust, allow me to ask a few. Was the lead ye were follerin' carryin' a black cappin', and did it have a prominent gray foot-wall?"
" Yep, the sail wuz gray," said the sailor.
" Was the sparklers a black oxide ? "
" Yep," replied the sailor.
" Dark and sort uv languishin'," added the packer.
" Well, fellers, we might as well throw our sledges into the brush, touch the fuse to our powder and blow out ! I'm with ye!"
Charley Mamon was chased by a grizzly, and when asked why he ran, he answered:
" Because I couldn't fly, sir ! "
McCarthy was chased by a female grizzly, and he came running into camp with his hat in one hand and a hatchet in the other. He was asked why he didn't throw the hatchet at her, and he replied that he needed that to cut the wind as he ran.
While in the north I came within four inches of making a fortune. I found asbestos with fibre one inch long, and if it had been five I should have made a fortune. It is embarrassing to be a millionaire. When disporting a gold-nugget chain in a Seattle hotel lobby, a man was overheard to remark:
" There is one of those Alaska millionaires!"
'At that particular time, I couldn't have purchased a sandwich for an ant.
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We entered a large tent at Valdez, which was a sort of a rendezvous for prospectors, miners, pack- ers and their retinues, and where tobacco smoke was about all that could be seen until one's eyes became accustomed to the surroundings. A man in a cor- ner said :
" Bring yer carcass over here, pard, and quiet yer- self on my sleeping-bag, fer a feller that looks like ye should not be seen and seldom heard."
The invitation was accepted with a comment to the speaker for his applicable remarks, and the con- versation was resumed.
" I say, Lew, what kind uv a trip did ye have to Slate Creek ? " asked one.
" Just two hundred miles uv a picnic," replied Lew, “ except we had a tenderfoot uv a veterinary surgeon along who didn't know straight up. We tried to lose him on the Gokona, but the chump stumbled into camp by accident. That Yazoo couldn't boil water without burnin' it. Veterinary ! Why, he didn't even know that a wart from a horse's leg would cure the colic ! "
" Wuz that the feller what wore the leggins ?" " Yep."
" Gee! That feller didn't have brains enough to oil a gimblet ! Chris and Nick should have had him along with them when they were amusin' the bar. Say, Chris, tell the boys about yer bar fight on the Copper."
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" Out with it," demanded another.
Chris began to move uneasily about on a sack of flour, and evidently the subject was about to be changed to bears.
" Steam up, Chris, we're waitin'," ordered the engineer of a little steam launch that plied between Valdez and Fort Liscum.
" Well," said Chris, " Nick and me did see a bar and the bar seed us! I said, 'Nick, better shoot!' Nick, he shot; bar come, we run! I fell down and said, 'Nick, better shoot!' Nick he shot, bar bawled and we run! I fell in a creek, but when I got out, I said, 'Nick, better shoot!' Nick he shot, and we run through some brush and up a hill. We looked and couldn't see any bar, and we listened and we couldn't hear any bar, and I said, ‘Nick, better shoot, anyway!' Nick he shot, and we came to Valdez ! "
" How long did you go without a hat, Chris?" " About three weeks."
Evidently he had jumped from under his hat, had never returned for it and had come eighty miles to Valdez. Uncle Charley remarked:
" If dose fellers hat not peen smart peoples dey would not got avay alife ! "
'A military officer came in to smoke and to listen to the edifying conversation, and "Windy Jim" concluded that the officer should be introduced to
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some one; so he jumped up and with assumed gravity introduced him to "Uncle " Charley Brown, who asked :
" You say he vas a soltger ? "
"Yes, Uncle Charley, this is an officer in the United States Army."
" Oh, I tought he vas a Swede!"
The officer asked Uncle Charley's nationality, and he replied :
" I vos a Timocrat! "
Presently the proprietor walked to the center of the room and stretched and yawned as an indication that he wished to retire, but it was an abortive at- tempt, for no one wished to take the hint. They sang songs and finished by singing :
" Round my Alaska cabin lie the goldfields, In the distance looms the glacier, clear and cool; Oftimes my thoughts revert to scenes of childhood, And I wish I were a boy again at school."
Again the proprietor stepped to the center of the room and kindly requested his partner to retire and give the visitors a chance to go home; whereupon he was caught, and his arm held out while all took several turns at shaking it and bidding him good- night.
The next day a packer approached Ed -, lead- ing a horse, and said :
" Ed, I'm goin' to take ye up on yer price for this
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piebald plug uv yourn, but I'm goin' to straddle him first and want ye to hold his smellers while I git off the earth."
" If ye are hankerin' after suicidin' by tryin' to ride him without a saddle, he'll help ye, fer he's a mighty commodatin' cuss in that respect, but ye bet- ter leave me the address uv yer relatives."
As Bill hitched up his trousers, preparatory to making the mount, Ed took a firm hold of the horse's nose and remarked :
" Somethin's goin' to drap !"
When Bill was, as he believed, firmly seated, he ordered the horse turned loose, and then there was a commotion, for the rider took two turns in the air and came down in a manner that indicated firmness. He arose, and as he hobbled up to Ed, he handed out the money, saying :
" He's mine ! Yer see I was stuck on him, Ed!"
" Yep, for about three jumps !" replied Ed, as he took the money, and added :
" As the performance was better than advertised, Bill, I guess the pizen is on me, so we'll irrigate!" and the two started off to interview King Alcohol.
Frank - met a bear on the shore of the Klu- tena Lake, and by killing him, established his repu- tation as a bear hunter. Dr. T- insisted that Frank should accompany him to the haunts of many bear, up the St. Anne Creek. They ascended about
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a mile, and stationed themselves on each side of a point where bear came out every evening to feed on salmon, and where one could watch up the creek and the other down.
Presently Frank heard the doctor shooting as rapidly as he could pump his Winchester, and look- ing over he saw the M. D. shooting at his own large black dog, that was tracking them over the creek bars, down below. The doctor's eyesight was poor and he wore glasses, but he continued to shoot until the dog ran right up to him, and when he discovered his mistake, he exclaimed :
" The Holy Moses ! I might have shot my own dog! "
Frank laughed at him, for missing his dog, until the doctor became angry and said :
" You infernal imbecile! I might have killed my own dog! I don't want to be alone with a laughing idiot, anyway," and accordingly started for camp. Frank concluded to overtake him and, by apologiz- ing, get him back in a good humor.
After traveling half a mile, he came to where the doctor was standing on the bank of the creek, watch- ing the salmon swimming in clear water about ten feet below and, as he wore a handkerchief tied over his ears, because of mosquitoes, he failed to hear the approach of his mischievous companion. The water was about five feet deep, and it suddenly occurred to Frank to give the M. D. a scare; so, acting on the
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impulse of the moment, he jumped and grabbed the doctor, emitting a savage growl, whereupon the doc- tor yelled a war-whoop, turned around, ran back- wards and fell into the creek.
Fortunately he had dropped his weapon and it had sunk to the bottom, for, when pale with fright and half-strangled, he arose and stood upright in the water and saw Frank there, roaring with laugh- ter, he swore he would shoot such a laughing idiot, just as soon as he could get his gun. Every time he reached down after the gun, the water came over his head and caused him to straighten up; then he would renew his declaration and Frank would yell with laughter. As the doctor was making desperate ex- ertions, it dawned on Frank that his pacifying efforts had been a complete failure, and he took to the brush and remained in seclusion for several days.
AN ALASKA RIVER INCIDENT
" I don't believe I should attempt to raft across the river right here, but I should tow along the shore up to that point, if I were you. There is dan- ger of your going through the rapids down below, and, while you could surely cross before reaching the box canyon, a mile farther down, yet it is rather dangerous to risk it."
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