TOO MUCH GOLD
This being a story--and a truer one than it may appear--of a mining
country, it is quite to be expected that it will be a hard-luck
story. But that depends on the point of view. Hard luck is a mild
way of terming it so far as Kink Mitchell and Hootchinoo Bill are
concerned; and that they have a decided opinion on the subject is a
matter of common knowledge in the Yukon country.
It was in the fall of 1896 that the two partners came down to the
east bank of the Yukon, and drew a Peterborough canoe from a moss-
covered cache. They were not particularly pleasant-looking
objects. A summer's prospecting, filled to repletion with hardship
and rather empty of grub, had left their clothes in tatters and
themselves worn and cadaverous. A nimbus of mosquitoes buzzed
about each man's head. Their faces were coated with blue clay.
Each carried a lump of this damp clay, and, whenever it dried and
fell from their faces, more was daubed on in its place. There was
a querulous plaint in their voices, an irritability of movement and
gesture, that told of broken sleep and a losing struggle with the
little winged pests.
"Them skeeters'll be the death of me yet," Kink Mitchell whimpered,
as the canoe felt the current on her nose, and leaped out from the
bank
"Cheer up, cheer up. We're about done," Hootchinoo Bill answered,
with an attempted heartiness in his funereal tones that was
ghastly. "We'll be in Forty Mile in forty minutes, and then--
cursed little devil!"
One hand left his paddle and landed on the back of his neck with a
sharp slap. He put a fresh daub of clay on the injured part,
swearing sulphurously the while. Kink Mitchell was not in the
least amused. He merely improved the opportunity by putting a
thicker coating of clay on his own neck.
They crossed the Yukon to its west bank, shot down-stream with easy
stroke, and at the end of forty minutes swung in close to the left
around the tail of an island. Forty Mile spread itself suddenly
before them. Both men straightened their backs and gazed at the
sight. They gazed long and carefully, drifting with the current,
in their faces an expression of mingled surprise and consternation
slowly gathering. Not a thread of smoke was rising from the
hundreds of log-cabins. There was no sound of axes biting sharply
into wood, of hammering and sawing. Neither dogs nor men loitered
before the big store. No steamboats lay at the bank, no canoes,
nor scows, nor poling-boats. The river was as bare of craft as the
town was of life.
"Kind of looks like Gabriel's tooted his little horn, and you an'
me has turned up missing," remarked Hootchinoo Bill.
His remark was casual, as though there was nothing unusual about
the occurrence. Kink Mitchell's reply was just as casual as though
he, too, were unaware of any strange perturbation of spirit.
"Looks as they was all Baptists, then, and took the boats to go by
water," was his contribution.
"My ol' dad was a Baptist," Hootchinoo Bill supplemented. "An' he
always did hold it was forty thousand miles nearer that way."
This was the end of their levity. They ran the canoe in and
climbed the high earth bank. A feeling of awe descended upon them
as they walked the deserted streets. The sunlight streamed
placidly over the town. A gentle wind tapped the halyards against
the flagpole before the closed doors of the Caledonia Dance Hall.
Mosquitoes buzzed, robins sang, and moose birds tripped hungrily
among the cabins; but there was no human life nor sign of human
life.
"I'm just dyin' for a drink," Hootchinoo Bill said and
unconsciously his voice sank to a hoarse whisper.
His partner nodded his head, loth to hear his own voice break the
stillness. They trudged on in uneasy silence till surprised by an
open door. Above this door, and stretching the width of the
building, a rude sign announced the same as the "Monte Carlo." But
beside the door, hat over eyes, chair tilted back, a man sat
sunning himself. He was an old man. Beard and hair were long and
white and patriarchal.
"If it ain't ol' Jim Cummings, turned up like us, too late for
Resurrection!" said Kink Mitchell.
"Most like he didn't hear Gabriel tootin'," was Hootchinoo Bill's
suggestion.
"Hello, Jim! Wake up!" he shouted.
The old man unlimbered lamely, blinking his eyes and murmuring
automatically: "What'll ye have, gents? What'll ye have?"
They followed him inside and ranged up against the long bar where
of yore a half-dozen nimble bar-keepers found little time to loaf.
The great room, ordinarily aroar with life, was still and gloomy as
a tomb. There was no rattling of chips, no whirring of ivory
balls. Roulette and faro tables were like gravestones under their
canvas covers. No women's voices drifted merrily from the dance-
room behind. Ol' Jim Cummings wiped a glass with palsied hands,
and Kink Mitchell scrawled his initials on the dust-covered bar.
"Where's the girls?" Hootchinoo Bill shouted, with affected
geniality.
"Gone," was the ancient bar-keeper's reply, in a voice thin and
aged as himself, and as unsteady as his hand.
"Where's Bidwell and Barlow?"
"Gone."
"And Sweetwater Charley?"
"Gone."
"And his sister?"
"Gone too."
"Your daughter Sally, then, and her little kid?"
"Gone, all gone." The old man shook his head sadly, rummaging in
an absent way among the dusty bottles.
"Great Sardanapolis! Where?" Kink Mitchell exploded, unable longer
to restrain himself. "You don't say you've had the plague?"
"Why, ain't you heerd?" The old man chuckled quietly. "They-all's
gone to Dawson."
"What-like is that?" Bill demanded. "A creek? or a bar? or a
place?"
"Ain't never heered of Dawson, eh?" The old man chuckled
exasperatingly. "Why, Dawson's a town, a city, bigger'n Forty
Mile. Yes, sir, bigger'n Forty Mile."
"I've ben in this land seven year," Bill announced emphatically,
"an' I make free to say I never heard tell of the burg before.
Hold on! Let's have some more of that whisky. Your information's
flabbergasted me, that it has. Now just whereabouts is this
Dawson-place you was a-mentionin'?"
"On the big flat jest below the mouth of Klondike," ol' Jim
answered. "But where has you-all ben this summer?"
"Never you mind where we-all's ben," was Kink Mitchell's testy
reply. "We-all's ben where the skeeters is that thick you've got
to throw a stick into the air so as to see the sun and tell the
time of day. Ain't I right, Bill?"
"Right you are," said Bill. "But speakin' of this Dawson-place how
like did it happen to be, Jim?"
"Ounce to the pan on a creek called Bonanza, an' they ain't got to
bed-rock yet."
"Who struck it?"
"Carmack."
At mention of the discoverer's name the partners stared at each
other disgustedly. Then they winked with great solemnity.
"Siwash George," sniffed Hootchinoo Bill.
"That squaw-man," sneered Kink Mitchell.
"I wouldn't put on my moccasins to stampede after anything he'd
ever find," said Bill.
"Same here," announced his partner. "A cuss that's too plumb lazy
to fish his own salmon. That's why he took up with the Indians.
S'pose that black brother-in-law of his,--lemme see, Skookum Jim,
eh?--s'pose he's in on it?"
The old bar-keeper nodded. "Sure, an' what's more, all Forty Mile,
exceptin' me an' a few cripples."
"And drunks," added Kink Mitchell.
"No-sir-ee!" the old man shouted emphatically.
"I bet you the drinks Honkins ain't in on it!" Hootchinoo Bill
cried with certitude.
Ol' Jim's face lighted up. "I takes you, Bill, an' you loses."
"However did that ol' soak budge out of Forty Mile?" Mitchell
demanded.
"The ties him down an' throws him in the bottom of a polin'-boat,"
ol' Jim explained. "Come right in here, they did, an' takes him
out of that there chair there in the corner, an' three more drunks
they finds under the pianny. I tell you-alls the whole camp hits
up the Yukon for Dawson jes' like Sam Scratch was after them,--
wimmen, children, babes in arms, the whole shebang. Bidwell comes
to me an' sez, sez he, 'Jim, I wants you to keep tab on the Monte
Carlo. I'm goin'.'
"'Where's Barlow?' sez I. 'Gone,' sez he, 'an' I'm a-followin'
with a load of whisky.' An' with that, never waitin' for me to
decline, he makes a run for his boat an' away he goes, polin' up
river like mad. So here I be, an' these is the first drinks I've
passed out in three days."
The partners looked at each other.
"Gosh darn my buttoms!" said Hootchinoo Bill. "Seems likes you and
me, Kink, is the kind of folks always caught out with forks when it
rains soup."
"Wouldn't it take the saleratus out your dough, now?" said Kink
Mitchell. "A stampede of tin-horns, drunks, an' loafers."
"An' squaw-men," added Bill. "Not a genooine miner in the whole
caboodle."
"Genooine miners like you an' me, Kink," he went on academically,
"is all out an' sweatin' hard over Birch Creek way. Not a genooine
miner in this whole crazy Dawson outfit, and I say right here, not
a step do I budge for any Carmack strike. I've got to see the
colour of the dust first."
"Same here," Mitchell agreed. "Let's have another drink."
Having wet this resolution, they beached the canoe, transferred its
contents to their cabin, and cooked dinner. But as the afternoon
wore along they grew restive. They were men used to the silence of
the great wilderness, but this gravelike silence of a town worried
them. They caught themselves listening for familiar sounds--
"waitin' for something to make a noise which ain't goin' to make a
noise," as Bill put it. They strolled through the deserted streets
to the Monte Carlo for more drinks, and wandered along the river
bank to the steamer landing, where only water gurgled as the eddy
filled and emptied, and an occasional salmon leapt flashing into
the sun.
They sat down in the shade in front of the store and talked with
the consumptive storekeeper, whose liability to hemorrhage
accounted for his presence. Bill and Kink told him how they
intended loafing in their cabin and resting up after the hard
summer's work. They told him, with a certain insistence, that was
half appeal for belief, half challenge for contradiction, how much
they were going to enjoy their idleness. But the storekeeper was
uninterested. He switched the conversation back to the strike on
Klondike, and they could not keep him away from it. He could think
of nothing else, talk of nothing else, till Hootchinoo Bill rose up
in anger and disgust.
"Gosh darn Dawson, say I!" he cried.
"Same here," said Kink Mitchell, with a brightening face. "One'd
think something was doin' up there, 'stead of bein' a mere stampede
of greenhorns an' tinhorns."
But a boat came into view from downstream. It was long and slim.
It hugged the bank closely, and its three occupants, standing
upright, propelled it against the stiff current by means of long
poles.
"Circle City outfit," said the storekeeper. "I was lookin' for 'em
along by afternoon. Forty Mile had the start of them by a hundred
and seventy miles. But gee! they ain't losin' any time!"
'We'll just sit here quiet-like and watch 'em string by," Bill said
complacently.
As he spoke, another boat appeared in sight, followed after a brief
interval by two others. By this time the first boat was abreast of
the men on the bank. Its occupants did not cease poling while
greetings were exchanged, and, though its progress was slow, a
half-hour saw it out of sight up river.
Still they came from below, boat after boat, in endless procession.
The uneasiness of Bill and Kink increased. They stole speculative,
tentative glances at each other, and when their eyes met looked
away in embarrassment. Finally, however, their eyes met and
neither looked away.
Kink opened his mouth to speak, but words failed him and his mouth
remained open while he continued to gaze at his partner.
"Just what I was thinken', Kink," said Bill.
They grinned sheepishly at each other, and by tacit consent started
to walk away. Their pace quickened, and by the time they arrived
at their cabin they were on the run.
"Can't lose no time with all that multitude a-rushin' by," Kink
spluttered, as he jabbed the sour-dough can into the beanpot with
one hand and with the other gathered in the frying-pan and coffee-
pot.
"Should say not," gasped Bill, his head and shoulders buried in a
clothes-sack wherein were stored winter socks and underwear. "I
say, Kink, don't forget the saleratus on the corner shelf back of
the stove."
Half-an-hour later they were launching the canoe and loading up,
while the storekeeper made jocular remarks about poor, weak mortals
and the contagiousness of "stampedin' fever." But when Bill and
Kink thrust their long poles to bottom and started the canoe
against the current, he called after them:-
"Well, so-long and good luck! And don't forget to blaze a stake or
two for me!"
They nodded their heads vigorously and felt sorry for the poor
wretch who remained perforce behind.
* * * * *
Kink and Bill were sweating hard. According to the revised
Northland Scripture, the stampede is to the swift, the blazing of
stakes to the strong, and the Crown in royalties, gathers to itself
the fulness thereof. Kink and Bill were both swift and strong.
They took the soggy trail at a long, swinging gait that broke the
hearts of a couple of tender-feet who tried to keep up with them.
Behind, strung out between them and Dawson (where the boats were
discarded and land travel began), was the vanguard of the Circle
City outfit. In the race from Forty Mile the partners had passed
every boat, winning from the leading boat by a length in the Dawson
eddy, and leaving its occupants sadly behind the moment their feet
struck the trail.
"Huh! couldn't see us for smoke," Hootchinoo Bill chuckled,
flirting the stinging sweat from his brow and glancing swiftly back
along the way they had come.
Three men emerged from where the trail broke through the trees.
Two followed close at their heels, and then a man and a woman shot
into view.
"Come on, you Kink! Hit her up! Hit her up!"
Bill quickened his pace. Mitchell glanced back in more leisurely
fashion.
"I declare if they ain't lopin'!"
"And here's one that's loped himself out," said Bill, pointing to
the side of the trail.
A man was lying on his back panting in the culminating stages of
violent exhaustion. His face was ghastly, his eyes bloodshot and
glazed, for all the world like a dying man.
"CHECHAQUO!" Kink Mitchell grunted, and it was the grunt of the old
"sour dough" for the green-horn, for the man who outfitted with
"self-risin'" flour and used baking-powder in his biscuits.
The partners, true to the old-timer custom, had intended to stake
down-stream from the strike, but when they saw claim 81 BELOW
blazed on a tree,--which meant fully eight miles below Discovery,--
they changed their minds. The eight miles were covered in less
than two hours. It was a killing pace, over so rough trail, and
they passed scores of exhausted men that had fallen by the wayside.
At Discovery little was to be learned of the upper creek.
Cormack's Indian brother-in-law, Skookum Jim, had a hazy notion
that the creek was staked as high as the 30's; but when Kink and
Bill looked at the corner-stakes of 79 ABOVE, they threw their
stampeding packs off their backs and sat down to smoke. All their
efforts had been vain. Bonanza was staked from mouth to source,--
"out of sight and across the next divide." Bill complained that
night as they fried their bacon and boiled their coffee over
Cormack's fire at Discovery.
"Try that pup," Carmack suggested next morning.
"That pup" was a broad creek that flowed into Bonanza at 7 ABOVE.
The partners received his advice with the magnificent contempt of
the sour dough for a squaw-man, and, instead, spent the day on
Adam's Creek, another and more likely-looking tributary of Bonanza.
But it was the old story over again--staked to the sky-line.
For threes days Carmack repeated his advice, and for three days
they received it contemptuously. But on the fourth day, there
being nowhere else to go, they went up "that pup." They knew that
it was practically unstaked, but they had no intention of staking.
The trip was made more for the purpose of giving vent to their ill-
humour than for anything else. They had become quite cynical,
sceptical. They jeered and scoffed at everything, and insulted
every chechaquo they met along the way.
At No. 23 the stakes ceased. The remainder of the creek was open
for location.
"Moose pasture," sneered Kink Mitchell.
But Bill gravely paced off five hundred feet up the creek and
blazed the corner-stakes. He had picked up the bottom of a candle-
box, and on the smooth side he wrote the notice for his centre-
stake:-
