A Claim on Klondyke. Edward Roper
it!"
"Seventy-five pounds of gold! Why, that was worth £3000!" I cried.
"Yes, quite that," said Meade; "but I got £2500 for it here, and have a decent little bag of nuggets still unsold. I'll show them to you at the bank some day if you like."
I smiled. I'm afraid I did not altogether believe him. I had an idea that he was romancing. "How did you get down and bring all that gold with you?" I asked, half laughing.
"It's too long a yarn to tell now," he replied. "I got back all right to Dawson in my canoe, sold it, and managed to keep my find secret. I fortunately procured a passage in the stern-wheeler, P. B. Weare, the last boat for St. Michael's that season. From there I easily got here, and no one knew that I had struck gold—no one does know it yet but the manager of the bank, and now you."
It was a most interesting story, certainly; I was glad to have heard it, but there was "no such luck for me," I observed, at which Meade laughed, but added, "See here, I've told you this because I want you to share with me this season! What d'ye say?"
"What?" I exclaimed, "and get gold like that? Oh! of course I'll go; but are you in earnest? why should you favour me thus?"
He declared solemnly that he meant it; he averred that he had taken to me, that he knew I was strong, healthy, a good fellow, and used to working in rough country, and as he was determined to go, and certainly would not do so again alone, he had made me his confidant and this offer in perfect good faith, and he ended thus, "Think it over, take time, keep what I've told you to yourself, but I hope you'll join me."
Later, he explained that we must leave Victoria soon, that we should come back at the end of September, and that he would be miserably surprised if we did not return with reasonable piles. "But we will not go the way I went," said he. "No, I met some men at Dawson who had come by a much shorter route—by the Lynn Canal and Skagway. We save thus nearly 3000 miles, and the trail is quite feasible. You've done some boating, some canoeing, I suppose?"
I said I had, both in England and Canada, which pleased him, and he assured me that we should do splendidly, and again he said he hoped I'd join him.
Naturally, I did think this over. I heard about his antecedents from the bank manager, found he was a member of a good old English family, and that he himself was of good repute. I heard from the same source that it was true about the gold he had brought down, I saw his bag of nuggets, and I liked him. I was looking for some employment, I counted the cost, and knowing that if, at the worst, I returned empty-handed, I should not even then be quite without funds, I consented to share with him in the adventure. He was to defray all expenses.
It was early in April that he and I started in a steamer bound for Sitka and other ports in Alaska. She came from Tacoma, in the State of Washington, and picked us up at Victoria on her way to the north.
Meade having all plans cut and dried, it did not take us long to lay in our stock of necessaries. We purchased provisions, tinned meats and vegetables, flour and bacon, with plenty of various preserved foods, enough to keep us going well for at least a year. We took ample supply of tobacco, with guns, ammunition, a sheet-iron Yukon stove, picks, shovels, washpans, and we did not forget our axes. All these goods were done up in parcels covered with waterproof canvas, each in weight suitable for "packing," that is for Indians to carry.
Leaving Victoria, we travelled up between Vancouver Island and the mainland to Naniamo. Here we took in coal, then headed up the coast.
How am I to describe to you this wonderful journey? Words fail me. From the very start it was delightful. True, we were at sea; but being amongst islands, we were so sheltered that it was like a placid river. We traversed the grandest scenery that can be imagined, the water clear and smooth as glass, with air as soft as velvet. We sighted Queen Charlotte's Islands, but voyaged through channels nearer the mainland, between grand timbered islets, past rocky bluffs and gorges, always in sight of mountains, many being snow-covered and glaciered. Then on between Prince of Wales' Island and the mainland, and so to Fort Wrangel, where we left the goodly steamer. We had come seven hundred miles in her, and had been four days on the way.
Wrangel was just a rough group of shanties, with some stores and many totem-poles, as most of the few inhabitants were Indians of the Stickeen tribe. The whites were traders, or miners and prospectors, en route to the Yukon country. Here we hired a canoe to carry us to Juneau. It was an immense one, beautifully fashioned out of one huge log of cedar—a dug-out—but in shape and seaworthiness most excellent. We engaged four Indians to man it. Most of the trip was made with paddles; but sometimes a square sail was hoisted on a pole forward. We camped each night upon the rocky shores.
It took three days to reach that town. It is the metropolis of Alaska, Sitka being the capital. But most of the business is done in Juneau. It is, naturally, a rough and ramshackle place, yet we found it possible to obtain fair accommodation at a queer hotel, and every article of provisions and gear needed in the upper country. It has a city hall and court-house, waterworks, banks, and electric light and wharves! We had to wait two days for one of the two small steamers which ply between Juneau and Skagway. The Rustler is the one we took, the fare then being only 10 dollars each—but we had to feed ourselves.
After leaving Juneau we steamed along a narrow strait between Douglas Island and the coast, and entered the famed Lynn Canal, which is an arm of the sea running almost due north. It averages ten miles in width, and is about one hundred in length, having very regular shores, straight and uniform; but for its dimensions, it might be taken indeed for an artificially made canal. On our left we skirted the great Davidson Glacier. The whole journey was grand, sublime, and in many places awful.
We arrived in Skagway Inlet on the second day. A few miles from the head of it we came to the Skagway river or creek, 120 miles from Juneau, and here, amongst a wilderness of trees, mountains, and mud flats, a mere foothold in the snow-clad granite coast-range, were a handful of Indian rancheries and a few log shanties and some tents. There is a great rise and fall in the tides at Skagway. We had to wait some time ere the one boat belonging to the Rustler could land us and our stuff on the rock-strewn muddy beach. No one from the shore lent a hand. There was a rough wharf, it is true, in course of construction. The men building it, we understood, had gone to their camp, for it was late when we arrived.
A number of Indians were about: their sole employment seemed to be to sit on stumps and logs, smoke and chew tobacco, and gaze stolidly at us. They were dressed just like the white men.
As for the few white men, they gathered round us, eyed us and our outfit, but said nothing. A more miserable, unhappy, low-spirited set of men I had never before come across.
Well, we were landed at Skagway, and questioned the inhabitants. It was not easy to obtain information. "Where is the trail to the White Pass? How could we get to it? What means of transport were there?" Those were the questions we made it plain that we desired to have answered.
One would have supposed that these people could have enlightened us; but no—their advice and information was so vague that we might have taken them for new arrivals, like ourselves. But that they were old hands was plain, for they argued amongst themselves, entered into long yarns about what this and that man had experienced, what Slim Jim thought, and Blear-eyed Scottie said—we could make nothing of them. Some advised us to go by canoe, which was chaff; and others declared that was ridiculous—by the trail was the only way. "What trail? Which is it?" we begged to be informed. "Oh! just up the river a piece," was all we could arrive at.
No doubt these men, regarding us as "tenderfeet," took pleasure, as usual, in mystifying us; and it was our policy not to undeceive them. I was the usual spokesman.
It must be quite clearly understood that the rush to the Klondyke had not begun then. It was known, undoubtedly, that there was much gold up country, and every white man there was after it, so that if it had been guessed that Meade had been up already, the fact of his returning with the ample outfit we possessed would have convinced them that he had been successful, and we should have been followed and our secret discovered.
It was ten o'clock at night then, but not really dark. We were perplexed. These loafers