CHAPTER XXII
THE LAST STRAW
One night George ran into the tent, and shook life into John and Hugh.
"They"re here!"
"Who?"
"Poo-Bah"s gang."
At once the two were wide awake. Hugh stuck his head out of the tent, and saw a number of men walking down the creek carrying stakes over their shoulders. He darted back, and clambered into his clothes. John followed his example.
"Where"s Frank?" asked Hugh.
George went to the tent door, and gave a low whistle. Frank made his appearance. Each man armed himself with his two stakes, and made towards the down-hill limit of his claim, and drove them in at their proper places. One stake bore the legend, "I claim 250 feet down-stream and 1,000 feet up-hill for placer-mining purposes. John Berwick, Miner"s License No. T. 64859." The other was similar, except that it claimed up-stream. The claims were staked in the small hours of July 12 in the year 1898--the day of the great Dominion Creek stampede.
The party then ate a hasty meal, and took food for luncheon. At about four o"clock they set out for Dawson, a distance of forty miles. They hoped to reach the city by 6 p.m.
They pa.s.sed the minions of the great grafter.
"Travelling early, gentlemen!" said one of them.
"Not so many flies," answered Hugh.
Occasionally wild-eyed men pa.s.sed them, with a stride that seemed as if it could never tire. This was an hour or two after John and his friends had set out. These men had evidently been given "the tip" the night before, and had begun to travel at once.
News spreads in a mining-camp with amazing rapidity, and the crowd of hurrying men grew greater as the party progressed. It was also noted that the fever was most marked in those who felt themselves at the rear of the stampede. Those in the lead carried nothing save a little axe--their body"s sustenance was in their pockets, often consisting only of a few pots of beef extract. When time for resting came the little axe would serve to make a spruce bed. Covering was not needed in the summer, as rest was taken in daytime--often in the full glare of the sun--a form of repose generally limited to negroes and savages.
The 12th of July, 1898, was one of the hottest days of the hottest season Dawson had ever known. The thermometer was nearly ninety in the shade. The land was parched for water, and the smoke of forest-fires filled the air, which seemed to burn the throats of those mad men. They coughed as they hurried by.
The party pa.s.sed the Bonanza Dome and commenced the decline into the Bonanza Valley. The trail followed the hog"s-back which ends in Carmacks Forks, the confluence of two branches of the Upper Bonanza.
The descent to them was rapid, and the steep ascent of a thousand feet seemed terrible to the stampeders. Yet up it they stormed and struggled till they fell exhausted. Even in the glaring sun men lay dead beat, panting. They were twenty miles from Dawson; twenty hard miles yet rested between them and their goal!
It seemed as if this stampede were born of frenzy in a last final effort of the desperate gold-seekers of that year. They were close to the end of the rainbow, where lay prizes for a few. There was no more of the old affected humour of the road. Drawn faces and staring eyes were telling of soul-strain. It was the last scene of the last act of a real tragedy!
At the spring beneath a group of stunted spruce-trees--at which, more or less, every man who has sought the glittering dust of the Klondike has gained refreshment--the party of four halted for lunch. A dozen men were already about it in all postures of fatigue. As soon as one got up and staggered on his place was occupied by a new-comer, who would gulp his fill of the blessed water and lie for a time inert. They came and they went. Not a word was said.
"Where are you stampeding to?" John at last asked one, who seemed less exhausted than the others.
"I don"t know; just following the crowd. Something doing on Dominion, they say, the hillsides. Some say the creek claims held by the Government are being thrown open, but I guess not."
Just following the crowd! It is ever the way in gold rushes. No wonder the man who had advised them to "keep on going till they struck St.
Michael"s" had said it was a disease!
They pa.s.sed on down the Bonanza trail; soon the majority of the people met were other than the stampeders. The stampeders were in the crowd, but the bulk were those engaged in the ordinary economic development of Bonanza.
They pa.s.sed from the Valley of Bonanza, after each had contributed the usual twenty-five cents to the coffers of Poo-Bah. Here they were but a mile or two from Dawson, and the flood of stampeders had pa.s.sed. As they approached the ferry they noticed a group of men standing before a cabin, evidently examining something. They joined the crowd and saw a little woman with an infant in her arms.
"My! look at the baby," said an individual bearing the superior dignity of an old-timer; "it"s the first white baby I"ve seen in six year; kind of makes me think of home. You say it was born inside here?"
"Yes, right here in this cabin, where my husband and I have wintered. He is off on the stampede."
"I"ve only been in the country two months, yet the sight of that baby makes me think of a land where there ain"t no Bonanza Creek trail,"
sighed a chechacho. "Ain"t you frightened to live here alone?"
"No. n.o.body will harm a respectable woman in Dawson." The speaker"s face shone with pride, which was not all that of motherhood.
The old-timer threw a nugget of gold on the baby"s breast as he walked away, desiring that the mother should buy the child something. The contribution was becoming general, when the mother protested. She knew there were many in the crowd who could not afford such a gift, and that any miner would part with his last cent rather than appear before his fellows as lacking in generosity or holding anything but a contempt for money.
To cross Poo-Bah"s ferry cost each person an additional twenty-five cents. There was none other than Poo-Bah"s ferry, for his franchise was exclusive. Many impoverished prospectors had attempted to retrieve their fortunes by plying at the river, but were stopped.
After eating their evening meal at the home-camp the party pa.s.sed down into the city to take their places in the line before the Gold Commissioner"s office. None of the Dominion Creek stampeders had yet arrived, and the line was its usual length. They knew that ere the morning arrived the line would be much increased and hundreds would have arrived within twenty-four hours. So, as nine o"clock came, they all lay down at full length on the earth and slept, indifferent to the current of life about them. This was the life of the goldfields--absolute lack of conventionality and indifference to social distinction.
Just before John fell asleep he noticed some men slipping into the Gold Commissioner"s office by a side door, among whom were Hardman and the "Cap." Mentioning this on the day following, Hugh remarked that they had stayed in the office till late.
In the morning a policeman was consulted, and Frank was commissioned to leave his place in the line, visit a shop, and buy tinned meat and biscuit. The policeman would recognize Frank when he returned and see that he got his place. So the friends secured their morning meal.
As was expected, the morning saw the arrival of the first of the Dominion Creek stampeders; they had staked their claims and returned to add to the length of the waiting line. Their faces and appearance told something of the terrors of their experience.
Bodies limp and eyes glazed, faces wan and expressionless, these were the result of thirty-six hours of intense muscular and nervous strain.
The gold frenzy is the hardest, harshest, of tax-masters, drawing its victims into such self-inflicted labour as, if imposed by an employer, would rouse the protests of civilized humanity. Such toil breeds the determination to have and to hold what is justly won, develops sympathy for the rights of others, and will push aside the laws of custom and society if they stand in the way of justice.
The office doors were opened and the slow procession began. It was an hour past noon when John and his three companions stood before the wicket where the whiskered Hardman was at work. Hugh came first, John next, then George, lastly Frank.
"We want to record hillsides on Dominion," said Hugh.
"What numbers?"
"I have lower half, fifty below centre discovery, left limit, and my friend here has upper half."
Hardman grabbed a book and turned over the leaves to the s.p.a.ce allotted these claims.
"These claims are already recorded," which answer was not unexpected.
"When were they staked?" Fatigued though he was, Hugh"s face was livid with anger.
"At one minute past midnight of the 11th of July, 1898."
"No, they wasn"t."
"Well, that is what the affidavit says which I entered late yesterday afternoon."
John now interposed. "We have been camped on this ground for three weeks, and have been on continuous watch. We staked these claims at 4 A.M. yesterday. No stakes were in the ground when we staked."
"I can"t help that; Joseph Trudean swears he staked one, and Ole Anderson swears he staked the other."