THE OLD PROSPECTOR.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 231, 29 September 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE OLD PROSPECTOR.

"KLONDIKE MAD."

THE COLD ALASKAN TRAIL.

SWIFT WATER BILL'S STORY

(By W. S. C. NICHOLLS.)

No. V. The Marototo tribute to which I referred in my last chapter panned out very profitably.' After I had run the battery for five weeks I had enough bullion to pay Mr. Judd his £210. When II went into his office I told him that I |had brought the money to pay him. I handed him the money and told him to make the transfer out in my wife's name, that I thought it would be better for her if anything would happen to me in the mine. He drew up the transfer and it was signed, and I recorded it and got back to the mine as quickly as I could and started the battery going, and kept it going for three years. I turned out £1300 a year for three years. By this the boom had started and I got a letter from Long Drive Walker to come to Waihi and see him if I wanted to. sell the mine, and to let him know what I wanted for it. I went to Waihi and told my wife what I was over for, and told her that I wanted £2500 for it. I went to Walker, arfd he' was prepared to give £2000 and no more. After a bit of barney I consented. I went and told my wife that T had sold it for £2000. She was in great glee about it. Walker had told me' to send her to Miller's, the lawyers office, and the money would be paid over and she could sign the transfer. She got £1000 of the money and left with it—l never saw her again. Getting Excited.

The newspapers were teeming with news of rich discoveries made on the Klondike. Everyone seemed to be Klondike mad and the newspapers were looked for eagerly to get the latest news from the field, the number of tons of gold already produced and the number of boats that had been sent down the \ukon from Dawson City, laden with gold, and also to hear of the latest gulches found and the number, of tons of gold taken from the Discovery Claim. I, amongst the rest, was getting a bit excited, and it only wafited a few more good reports to start, me going.. Then we read in the paper of the big find that had been made on the Indian River, Dominion Creek. Sulphur and Australian gulches; the number of animals engaged in packing gold to Dawson City; the number of claims staked out and that it was impossible to jet within seventy miles of Dawson

City without walking over stakes. This! M r a3 in November, and people said that it was time enough to leave New Zealand in March to strike the breaking up of the ice on the Yukon.

Things had started to move In Waihi. was the birth of the big boom, the mine had started to pay dividends and was opehing up well. 1 was just on the balance yhether I Mould go to Klondike or stay in Waihi and buv property in the main street in the'toMnship when the shares in the mine jumped from 2/6 to £5 in a fortnight and things were moving in Waihi and other districts adjoining it. Then another flourishing report came from the Klondike and I could stand it no longer. I went to Auckland and took boat to Wellington and booked mv passage to Vancouver, figuring on getting my outfit over the Chilcot and get down to Lake Bennett and build my boat to be ready to float off Mith the breaking up of the ice. I had to stay in Wellington a Meek to await a boat to Vancouver and I thought it the longest Meek I had ever spent. I was Klondike mad sure [enough.

The boat arrived at length. There were no passengers aboard of her returning from Klondike and there were only eleven bound for the Klondike. There were eight boys from Western Australian goldfields and three New Zealanders. We all chummed up together and were mates till we got to Klondike. When we arrived at Vancouver we found that there was not so much talk of the Klondike there as there was in Xev,- Zealand. We had to wait in Victoria, 8.C., for five dars for a boat to take us to Dyea, the nearest poet to the Chilcot Pass. All hands! decided on taking that route. While we were waiting. Swift Water Bill arrived out from the Klondike and the morning papers were full up with him and the amount of gold he had brought out with linn. He was supposed to have sixty thousand dollars with him I saw him. He had a nugget chain across his vest with a big nugget hanging in the centre for a pendant. He was Seatl t7 eattle ' When he t0 Seattle the papers reported that it was six hundred thousand he had brought j ' VVe learnt aft er that he was fitted up with sledge and doir team and three thousand dollars and sent out o a \ertise the field to get people on the move. The Canyon Trail.

The boat arrived and we got our outfits on board; we had about a ton and a-half of an outfit per man. with tent, lukon stove and sleigh We threaded our way through the islands, calling in at Juneau; this city is supported principally by the Tredival mine on Douglas Island, just across the water from it. I never struck a town with so many cripples, nearly every man in the streets was walking on crutches or had his arms or; head tied up.

We made another start for Dye a, and were surprised to be held up for customs duty and all our outfits overhauled and heavily taxed, being Canadian goods* the

duty on my outfit coming to 66 dollars, and it had to be paid in gold coin. We all had our money in sovereigns. 1 think it is very little of that money went to the Government. The customs officer looked quite pleased when we were handing him the golden sovereigns. We had our outfits brought up to Canyon City with a wagon. We took our sledges and camp outfits and some grub, and made up the canyon trail to Sheep Camp. It was a hard pull up the Canyon, the temperature was ten below zero, and the lower the temperature the harder the sleigh is to pull. We camped about half a mile above Sheep Camp, on the site where 200 diggers lost their lives three months later, getting buried with an avalanche of the mountains sweeping down the gulch and burying everything in its road. We pitched our tents "on the snow, and fitted up our Yukon stoves and cut the foliage of the spruce threes and threw it it on the snow for "feathers" to sleep on. When tlie fire got going in the stove, and the stove" and stove pipe got red hat, it made things look homely inside the tent. We started next morning to bring up our outfit; we brought two sleigh loads. I found two hundredweight was as much I cared about hauling up the canyon. One of the partv brought two dogs, but he found them a failure. They would have had his outfit eaten before lie had finished dragging it. We got two loads up the canyon, and that night a blizzard set in; it blew and snowed for three days. The first night of the blizzard I was awakened by pressure on my sleeping bag. I had quite a contract to get out of mv sleeping 1 bag and squeeze my way to the door of the tent. When 1 opened it I found 1 was snowed in. I had to shovel the snow off ■the tent; it was buried, only three feet of it being above the >m>w. This had to be repeated for three days, ami when the blizzard ended my tent whs down a hole eight feet below the surface of the snow. 1 cached the two sleigh loads of my outfit a few hundred yards higher up the trail than my tent, and never found it. It- \va« buried six feet in the snow. We had to get to work and break a trail in the soft snow for a distance of five miles to our Canyon City cache. The show hadn't fallen r<>o heavy in the canyon, so we soon had the trail broken, and got the balance of the outfit up without any further mishap. We had all our outfits dumped on Lake Bennett before the Canadian police arrived. We made a start t<> whip-saw our lumber to build our boats with. We had our boats built long before the breaking up of the ice. and didirt know what to do with ourselves while we were waiting. We got our outfits aboard our boats; there were four in the boat I was in, and we hoisted our sails and drifted away with great expectations. On the lake we had to depend on the wind, so we rigged up blankets and anything we could get to rig up to hurry us along. There were police camps at the mouths of all the rivers where you were demanded to haul in to get your outfit overhauled. Lake Labarg was a beautiful sight with the moving mass of boats.