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me, I was surprised at my words and scarce knew what I was saying. At last she spoke. "If ever I loved like that, the man I loved must be a king among men, a hero, almost a god." "Perhaps, Berna, perhaps; but not needfully. He may be a grim man with a face of power and passion, a virile,
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dominant brute, but--well, I think he will be more of a god. Let's change the subject." I found she had all the sad sophistication of the lowly-born, yet with it an invincible sense of purity, a delicate horror of the physical phases of love. She was a finely motived creature with impossible ideals, but out of her stark knowledge of
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life she was navely outspoken. Once I asked of her: "Berna, if you had to choose between death and dishonour, which would you prefer?" "Death, of course," she answered promptly. "Death's a pretty hard proposition," I commented. "No, it's easy; physical death, compared with the other, compared with moral death." She was very emphatic and angry with me for my
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hazarded demur. In an atmosphere of disillusionment and moral miasma she clung undauntedly to her ideals. Never was such a brave spirit, so determined in goodness, so upright in purity, and I blessed her for her unfaltering words. "May such sentiments as yours," I prayed, "be ever mine. In doubt, despair, defeat, oh Life, take not away from me my
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faith in the pure heart of woman!" Often I watched her thoughtfully, her slim, well-poised figure, her grey eyes that were fuller of soul than any eyes I have ever seen, her brown hair wherein the sunshine loved to pick out threads of gold, her delicate features with their fine patrician quality. We were dreamers twain, but while my outlook
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was gay with hope, hers was dark with despair. Since the episode of the scow I had never ventured to kiss her, but had treated her with a curious reserve, respect and courtesy. Indeed, I was diagnosing my case, wondering if I loved her, affirming, doubting on a very see-saw of indetermination. When with her I felt for her an
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intense fondness and at times an almost irresponsible tenderness. My eyes rested longingly on her, noting with tremulous joy the curves and shading of her face, and finding in its very defects, beauties. When I was away from her--oh, the easeless longing that was almost pain, the fanciful elaboration of our last talk, the hint of her graces in bird
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and flower and tree! I wanted her wildly, and the thought of a world empty of her was monstrous. I wondered how in the past we had both existed and how I had lived, carelessly, happy and serenely indifferent. I tried to think of a time when she should no longer have power to make my heart quicken with joy
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or contract with fear--and the thought of such a state was insufferable pain. Was I in love? Poor, fatuous fool! I wanted her more than everything else in all the world, yet I hesitated and asked myself the question. Hundreds of boats and scows were running the rapids, and we watched them with an untiring fascination. That was the most
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exciting spectacle in the whole world. The issue was life or death, ruin or salvation, and from dawn till dark, and with every few minutes of the day, was the breathless climax repeated. The faces of the actors were sick with dread and anxiety. It was curious to study the various expressions of the human countenance unmasked and confronted with
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gibbering fear. Yes, it was a vivid drama, a drama of cheers and tears, always thrilling and often tragic. Every day were bodies dragged ashore. The rapids demanded their tribute. The men of the trail must pay the toll. Sullen and bloated the river disgorged its prey, and the dead, without prayer or pause, were thrown into nameless graves. On
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our first day at the rapids we met the Halfbreed. He was on the point of starting downstream. Where was the Bank clerk? Oh, yes; they had upset coming through; when last he had seen little Pinklove he was struggling in the water. However, they expected to get the body every hour. He had paid two men to find and
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bury it. He had no time to wait. We did not blame him. In those wild days of headstrong hurry and gold-delirium human life meant little. "Another floater," one would say, and carelessly turn away. A callousness to death that was almost medival was in the air, and the friends of the dead hurried on, the richer by a partner's
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outfit. It was all new, strange, sinister to me, this unveiling of life's naked selfishness and lust. Next morning they found the body, a poor, shapeless, sodden thing with such a crumpled skull. My thoughts went back to the sweet-faced girl who had wept so bitterly at his going. Even then, maybe, she was thinking of him, fondly dreaming of
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his return, seeing the glow of triumph in his boyish eyes. She would wait and hope; then she would wait and despair; then there would be another white-faced woman saying, "He went to the Klondike, and never came back. We don't know what became of him." Verily, the way of the gold-trail was cruel. Berna was with me when they
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buried him. "Poor boy, poor boy!" she repeated. "Yes, poor little beggar! He was so quiet and gentle. He was no man for the trail. It's a funny world." The coffin was a box of unplaned boards loosely nailed together, and the men were for putting him into a grave on top of another coffin. I protested, so sullenly they
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proceeded to dig a new grave. Berna looked very unhappy, and when she saw that crude, shapeless pine coffin she broke down and cried bitterly. At last she dried her tears and with a happier look in her eyes bade me wait a little until she returned. Soon again she came back, carrying some folds of black sateen over her
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arm. As she ripped at this with a pair of scissors, I noticed there was a deep frilling to it. Also a bright blush came into her cheek at the curious glance I gave to the somewhat skimpy lines of her skirt. But the next instant she was busy stretching and tacking the black material over the coffin. The men
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had completed the new grave. It was only three feet deep, but the water coming in had prevented them from digging further. As we laid the coffin in the hole it looked quite decent now in its black covering. It floated on the water, but after some clods had been thrown down, it sank with many gurglings. It was as
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if the dead man protested against his bitter burial. We watched the grave-diggers throw a few more shovelsful of earth over the place, then go off whistling. Poor little Berna! she cried steadily. At last she said: "Let's get some flowers." So out of briar-roses she fashioned a cross and a wreath, and we laid them reverently on the muddy
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heap that marked the Bank clerk's grave. Oh, the pitiful mockery of it! Soon I knew that Berna and I must part, and but two nights later it came. It was near midnight, yet in no ways dark, and everywhere the camp was astir. We were sitting by the river, I remember, a little way from the boats. Where the
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sun had set, the sky was a luminous veil of ravishing green, and in the elusive light her face seemed wanly sweet and dreamlike. A sad spirit rustled amid the shivering willows and a great sadness had come over the girl. All the happiness of the past few days seemed to have ebbed away from her and left her empty
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of hope. As she sat there, silent and with hands clasped, it was as if the shadows that for a little had lifted, now enshrouded her with a greater gloom. "Tell me your trouble, Berna." She shook her head, her eyes wide as if trying to read the future. "Nothing." Her voice was almost a whisper. "Yes, there is, I
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know. Tell me, won't you?" Again she shook her head. "What's the matter, little chum?" "It's nothing; it's only my foolishness. If I tell you, it wouldn't help me any. And then--it doesn't matter. You wouldn't care. Why should you care?" She turned away from me and seemed absorbed in bitter thought. "Care! why, yes, I would care; I do
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care. You know I would do anything in the world to help you. You know I would be unhappy if you were unhappy. You know----" "Then it would only worry you." She was regarding me anxiously. "Now you must tell me, Berna. It will worry me indeed if you don't." Once more she refused. I pleaded with her gently. I
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coaxed, I entreated. She was very reluctant, yet at last she yielded. "Well, if I must," she said; "but it's all so sordid, so mean, I hate myself; I despise myself that I should have to tell it." She kneaded a tiny handkerchief nervously in her fingers. "You know how nice Madam Winklestein's been to me lately--bought me new clothes,
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given me trinkets. Well, there's a reason--she's got her eye on a man for me." I gave an exclamation of surprise. "Yes; you know she's let us go together--it's all to draw him on. Oh, couldn't you see it? Didn't you suspect something? You don't know how bitterly they hate you." I bit my lip. "Who's the man?" "Jack Locasto."
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I started. "Have you heard of him?" she asked. "He's got a million-dollar claim on Bonanza." Had I heard of him! Who had not heard of Black Jack, his spectacular poker plays, his meteoric rise, his theatric display? "Of course he's married," she went on, "but that doesn't matter up here. There's such a thing as a Klondike marriage, and
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they say he behaves well to his discarded mis----" "Berna!" angry and aghast, I had stopped her. "Never let me hear you utter that word. Even to say it seems pollution." She laughed harshly, bitterly. "What's this whole life but pollution?... Well, anyway, he wants me." "But you wouldn't, surely you wouldn't?" She turned on me fiercely. "What do you
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take me for? Surely you know me better than that. Oh, you almost make me hate you." Suddenly she pressed the little handkerchief to her eyes. She fell to sobbing convulsively. Vainly I tried to soothe her, whispering: "Oh, my dear, tell me all about it. I'm sorry, girl, I'm sorry." She ceased crying. She went on in her fierce,
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excited way. "He came to the restaurant in Bennett. He used to watch me a lot. His eyes were always following me. I was afraid. I trembled when I served him. He liked to see me tremble, it gave him a feeling of power. Then he took to giving me presents, a diamond ring, a heart-shaped locket, costly gifts. I
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wanted to return them, but she wouldn't let me, took them from me, put them away. Then he and she had long talks. I know it was all about me. That was why I came to you that night and begged you to marry me--to save me from him. Now it's gone from bad to worse. The net's closing round
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me in spite of my flutterings." "But he can't get you against your will," I cried. "No! no! but he'll never give up. He'll try so long as I resist him. I'm nice to him just to humour him and gain time. I can't tell you how much I fear him. They say he always gets his way with women.
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He's masterly and relentless. There's a cold, sneering command in his smile. You hate him but you obey him." "He's an immoral monster, Berna. He spares neither time nor money to gratify his whims where a woman is concerned. And he has no pity." "I know, I know." "He's intensely masculine, handsome in a vivid, gipsy sort of way; big,
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strong and compelling, but a callous libertine." "Yes, he's all that. And can you wonder then my heart is full of fear, that I am distracted, that I asked you what I did? He is relentless and of all women he wants me. He would break me on the wheel of dishonour. Oh, God!" Her face grew almost tragic in
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its despair. "And everything's against me; they're all helping him. I haven't a single friend, not one to stand by me, to aid me. Once I thought of you, and you failed me. Can you wonder I'm nearly crazy with the terror of it? Can you wonder I was desperate enough to ask you to save me? I'm all alone,
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friendless, a poor, weak girl. No, I'm wrong. I've one friend--death; and I'll die, I'll die, I swear it, before I let him get me." Her words came forth in a torrent, half choked by sobs. It was hard to get her calmed. Never had I thought her capable of such force, such passion. I was terribly distressed and at
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a loss how to comfort her. "Hush, Berna," I pleaded, "please don't say such things. Remember you have a friend in me, one that would do anything in his power to help you." She looked at me a moment. "How can you help me?" I held both of her hands firmly, looking into her eyes. "By marrying you. Will you
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marry me, dear? Will you be my wife?" "No!" I started. "Berna!" "No! I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man left in the world," she cried vehemently. "Why?" I tried to be calm. "Why! why, you don't love me; you don't care for me." "Yes, I do, Berna. I do indeed, girl. Care for you! Well, I
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care so much that--I beg you to marry me." "Yes, yes, but you don't love me right, not in your great, grand way. Not in the way you told me of. Oh, I know; it's part pity, part friendship. It would be different if I cared in the same way, if--if I didn't care so very much more." "You do,
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Berna; you love me like that?" "How do I know? How can I tell? How can any of us tell?" "No, dear," I said, "love has no limits, no bounds, it is always holding something in reserve. There are yet heights beyond the heights, that mock our climbing, never perfection; no great love but might have been eclipsed by a
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greater. There's a master key to every heart, and we poor fools delude ourselves with the idea we are opening all the doors. We are on sufferance, we are only understudies in the love drama, but fortunately the star seldom appears on the scene. However, this I know----" I rose to my feet. "Since the moment I set eyes on
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you, I loved you. Long before I ever met you, I loved you. I was just waiting for you, waiting. At first I could not understand, I did not know what it meant, but now I do, beyond the peradventure of a doubt; there never was any but you, never will be any but you. Since the beginning of time
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it was all planned that I should love you. And you, how do you care?" She stood up to hear my words. She would not let me touch her, but there was a great light in her eyes. Then she spoke and her voice was vibrant with passion, all indifference gone from it. "Oh, you blind! you coward! Couldn't you
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see? Couldn't you feel? That day on the scow it came to me--Love. It was such as I had never dreamed of, rapture, ecstasy, anguish. Do you know what I wished as we went through the rapids? I wished that it might be the end, that in such a supreme moment we might go down clinging together, and that in
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death I might hold you in my arms. Oh, if you'd only been like that afterwards, met love open-armed with love. But, no! you slipped back to friendship. I feel as if there were a barrier of ice between us now. I will try never to care for you any more. Now leave me, leave me, for I never want
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to see you again." "Yes, you will, you must, you must, Berna. I'd sell my immortal soul to win that love from you, my dearest, my dearest; I'd crawl around the world to kiss your shadow. If you called to me I would come from the ends of the earth, through storm and darkness, to your side. I love you
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so, I love you so." I crushed her to me, I kissed her madly, yet she was cold. "Have you nothing more to say than fine words?" she asked. "Marry me, marry me," I repeated. "Now?" Now! I hesitated again. The suddenness of it was like a cold douche. God knows, I burned for the girl, yet somehow convention clamped
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me. "Now if you wish," I faltered; "but better when we get to Dawson. Better when I've made good up there. Give me one year, Berna, one year and then----" "One year!" The sudden gleam of hope vanished from her eyes. For the third time I was failing her, yet my cursed prudence overrode me. "Oh, it will pass swiftly,
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dear. You will be quite safe. I will be near you and watch over you." I reassured her, anxiously explaining how much better it would be if we waited a little. "One year!" she repeated, and it seemed to me her voice was toneless. Then she turned to me in a sudden spate of passion, her face pleading, furrowed, wretchedly
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sad. "Oh, my dear, my dear, I love you better than the whole world, but I hoped you would care enough for me to marry me now. It would have been best, believe me. I thought you would rise to the occasion, but you've failed me. Well, be it so, we'll wait one year." "Yes, believe me, trust me, dear;
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it will be all right. I'll work for you, slave for you, think only of you, and in twelve short months--I'll give my whole life to make you happy." "Will you, dear? Well, it doesn't matter now.... I've loved you." * * * * * All that night I wrestled with myself. I felt I ought to marry her at
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once to shield her from the dangers that encompassed her. She was like a lamb among a pack of wolves. I juggled with my conscience. I was young and marriage to me seemed such a terribly all-important step. Yet in the end my better nature triumphed, and ere the camp was astir I arose. I was going to marry Berna
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that day. A feeling of relief came over me. How had it ever seemed possible to delay? I was elated beyond measure. I hurried to tell her, I pictured her joy. I was almost breathless. Love words trembled on my tongue tip. It seemed to me I could not bear to wait a moment. Then as I reached the place
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where they had rested I gazed unbelievingly. A sickening sense of loss and failure crushed me. For the scow was gone. It was three days before we made a start again, and to me each day was like a year. I chafed bitterly at the delay. Would those sacks of flour never dry? Longingly I gazed down the big, blue
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Yukon and cursed the current that was every moment carrying her farther from me. Why her sudden departure? I had no doubt it was enforced. I dreaded danger. Then in a while I grew calmer. I was foolish to worry. She was safe enough. We would meet in Dawson. At last we were under way. Once more we sped down
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that devious river, now swirling under the shadow of a steep bank, now steering around a sandspit. The scenery was hideous to me, bluffs of clay with pines peeping over their rims, willow-fringed flats, swamps of niggerhead, ugly drab hills in endless monotony. How full of kinks and hooks was the river! How vicious with snags! How treacherous with eddies!
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It was beginning to bulk in my thoughts almost like an obsession. Then one day Lake Labarge burst on my delighted eyes. The trail was nearing its end. Once more with swelling sail we drove before the wind. Once more we were in a fleet of Argonaut boats, and now, with the goal in sight, each man redoubled his efforts.
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Perhaps the rich ground would all be gone ere we reached the valley. Maddening thought after what we had endured! We must get on. There was not a man in all that fleet but imagined that fortune awaited him with open arms. They talked exultantly. Their eyes shone with the gold-lust. They strained at sweep and oar. To be beaten
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at the last! Oh, it was inconceivable! A tigerish eagerness filled them; a panic of fear and cupidity spurred them on. Labarge was a dream lake, mirroring noble mountains in its depths (for soon after we made it, a dead calm fell). But we had no eyes for its beauty. The golden magnet was drawing us too strongly now. We
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cursed that exquisite serenity that made us sweat at the oars; we cursed the wind that never would arise; the currents that always were against us. In that breathless tranquillity myriads of mosquitoes assailed us, blinded us, covered our food as we ate, made our lives a perfect hell of misery. Yet the trail was nearing its finish. What a
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relief it was when a sudden storm came up! White-caps tossed around us, and the wind drove us on a precipitous shore, so that we nearly came to a sorry end. But it was over at last, and we swept on into the Thirty-mile River. A furious, hurling stream was this, that matched our mad, impatient mood; but it was
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staked with hidden dangers. We gripped our weary oars. Keenly alert we had to be, steering and watching for rocks that would have ripped us from bow to stern. There was a famously terrible one, on which scows smashed like egg-shells under a hammer, and we missed it by a bare hand's-breadth. I felt sick to think of our bitterness
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had we piled up on it. That was an evil, ugly river, full of capricious turns and eddies, and the bluffs were high and steep. Hootalinqua, Big Salmon, Little Salmon, these are names to me now. All I can remember is long days of toil at the oar, fighting the growing obsession of mosquitoes, ever pressing on to the golden
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valley. The ceaseless strain was beginning to tell on us. We suffered from rheumatism, we barked with cold. Oh, we were weary, weary, yet the trail was nearing its end. One sunlit Sabbath evening I remember well. We were drifting along and we came on a lovely glade where a creek joined the river. It was a green, velvety, sparkling
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place, and by the creek were two men whipsawing lumber. We hailed them jauntily and asked them if they had found prospects. Were they getting out lumber for sluice-boxes? One of the men came forward. He was very tired, very quiet, very solemn. "No," he said, "we are sawing out a coffin for our dead." Then we saw a limp
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shape in their boat and we hurried on, awed and abashed. The river was mud colour now, swirling in great eddies or convulsed from below with sudden upheavals. Drifting on that oily current one seemed to be quite motionless, and only the gliding banks assured us of progress. The country seemed terrible to me, sinister, guilty, God-forsaken. At the horizon,
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jagged mountains stabbed viciously at the sky. The river overwhelmed me. Sometimes it was a stream of blood, running into the eye of the setting sun, beautiful, yet weird and menacing. It broadened, deepened, and every day countless streams swelled its volume. Islands waded in it greenly. Always we heard it _singing_, a seething, hissing noise supposed to be the
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pebbles shuffling on the bottom. The days were insufferably hot and mosquito-curst; the nights chilly, damp and mosquito-haunted. I suffered agonies from neuralgia. Never mind, it would soon be over. We were on our last lap. The trail was near its end. Yes, it was indeed the homestretch. Suddenly sweeping round a bend we raised a shout of joy. There
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was that great livid scar on the mountain face--the "Slide," and clustered below it like shells on the seashore, an army of tents. It was the gold-born city. Trembling with eagerness we pulled ashore. Our troubles were over. At last we had gained our Eldorado, thank God, thank God! A number of loafers were coming to meet us. They were
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strangely calm. "How about the gold?" said the Prodigal; "lots of ground left to stake?" One of them looked at us contemptuously. He chewed a moment ere he spoke. "You Cheechakers better git right home. There ain't a foot of ground to stake. Everything in sight was staked last Fall. The rest is all mud. There's nothing doin' an' there's
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ten men for every job! The whole thing's a fake. You Cheechakers better git right home." Yes, after all our travail, all our torment, we had better go right home. Already many were preparing to do so. Yet what of that great oncoming horde of which we were but the vanguard? What of the eager army, the host of the
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Cheechakos? For hundreds of miles were lake and river white with their grotesque boats. Beyond them again were thousands and thousands of others struggling on through mosquito-curst morasses, bent under their inexorable burdens. Reckless, indomitable, hope-inspired, they climbed the passes and shot the rapids; they drowned in the rivers, they rotted in the swamps. Nothing could stay them. The golden
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magnet was drawing them on; the spell of the gold-lust was in their hearts. And this was the end. For this they had mortgaged homes and broken hearts. For this they had faced danger and borne suffering: to be told to return. The land was choosing its own. All along it had weeded out the weaklings. Now let the fainthearted
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go back. This land was only for the Strong. Yet it was sad, so much weariness, and at the end disenchantment and failure. Verily the ways of the gold-trail were cruel. THE CAMP For once you've panned the speckled sand and seen the bonny dust, Its peerless brightness blinds you like a spell; It's little else you care about; you
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go because you must, And you feel that you could follow it to hell. You'd follow it in hunger, and you'd follow it in cold; You'd follow it in solitude and pain; And when you're stiff and battened down let some one whisper "Gold," You're lief to rise and follow it again. --"The Prospector." I will always remember my first
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day in the gold-camp. We were well in front of the Argonaut army, but already thousands were in advance of us. The flat at the mouth of Bonanza was a congestion of cabins; shacks and tents clustered the hillside, scattered on the heights and massed again on the slope sweeping down to the Klondike. An intense vitality charged the air.
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The camp was alive, ahum, vibrant with fierce, dynamic energy. In effect the town was but one street stretching alongside the water front. It was amazingly packed with men from side to side, from end to end. They lounged in the doorways of oddly assorted buildings, and jostled each other on the dislocated sidewalks. Stores of all kinds, saloons, gambling
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joints flourished without number, and in one block alone there were half a dozen dance-halls. Yet all seemed plethorically prosperous. Many of the business houses were installed in tents. That huge canvas erection was a mining exchange; that great log barn a dance-hall. Dwarfish log cabins impudently nestled up to pretentious three-story hotels. The effect was oddly staccato. All was
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grotesque, makeshift, haphazard. Back of the main street lay the red-light quarter, and behind it again a swamp of niggerheads, the breeding-place of fever and mosquito. The crowd that vitalised the street was strikingly cosmopolitan. Mostly big, bearded fellows they were, with here the full-blooded face of the saloon man, and there the quick, pallid mask of the gambler. Women
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too I saw in plenty, bold, free, predacious creatures, a rustle of silk and a reek of perfume. Till midnight I wandered up and down the long street; but there was no darkness, no lull in its clamorous life. I was looking for Berna. My heart hungered for her; my eyes ached for her; my mind was so full of
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her there seemed no room for another single thought. But it was like looking for a needle in a strawstack to find her in that seething multitude. I knew no one, and it seemed futile to inquire regarding her. These keen-eyed men with eager talk of claims and pay-dirt could not help me. There seemed to be nothing for it
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but to wait. So with spirits steadily sinking zerowards I waited. We found, indeed, that there was little ground left to stake. The mining laws were in some confusion, and were often changing. Several creeks were closed to location, but always new strikes were being made and stampedes started. So, after a session of debate, we decided to reserve our
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rights to stake till a good chance offered. It was a bitter awakening. Like all the rest we had expected to get ground that was gold from the grass-roots down. But there was work to be had, and we would not let ourselves be disheartened. The Jam-wagon had already deserted us. He was off up on Eldorado somewhere, shovelling dirt
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into a sluice-box for ten dollars a day. I made up my mind I would follow him. Jim also would get to work, while the Prodigal, we agreed, would look after all our interests, and stake or buy a good claim. Thus we planned, sitting in our little tent near the beach. We were in a congeries of tents. The
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beach was fast whitening with them. If one was in a hurry it was hard to avoid tripping over ropes and pegs. As each succeeding party arrived they had to go further afield to find camping-ground. And they were arriving in thousands daily. The shore for a mile was lined five deep with boats. Scows had been hauled high and
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dry on the gravel, and there the owners were living. A thousand stoves were eloquent of beans and bacon. I met a man taking home a prize, a porterhouse steak. He was carrying it over his arm like a towel, paper was so scarce. The camp was a hive of energy, a hum of occupation. But how many, after they
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had paraded that mile-long street with its mud, its seething foam of life, its blare of gramophones and its blaze of dance-halls, ached for their southland homes again! You could read the disappointment in their sun-tanned faces. Yet they were the eager navigators of the lakes, the reckless amateurs of the rivers. This was a something different from the trail.
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It was as if, after all their efforts, they had butted up against a stone wall. There was "nothing doing," no ground left, and only hard work, the hardest on earth. Moreover, the country was at the mercy of a gang of corrupt officials who were using the public offices for their own enrichment. Franchises were being given to the
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favourites of those in power, concessions sold, liquor permits granted, and abuses of every kind practised on the free miner. All was venality, injustice and exaction. "Go home," said the Man in the Street; "the mining laws are rotten. All kinds of ground is tied up. Even if you get hold of something good, them dam-robber government sharks will flim-flam
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you out of it. There's no square deal here. They tax you to mine; they tax you to cut a tree; they tax you to sell a fish; pretty soon they'll be taxing you to breathe. Go home!" And many went, many of the trail's most indomitable. They could face hardship and danger, the blizzards, the rapids, nature savage and
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ravening; but when it came to craft, graft and the duplicity of their fellow men they were discouraged, discomfited. "Say, boys, I guess I've done a slick piece of work," said the Prodigal with some satisfaction, as he entered the tent. "I've bought three whole outfits on the beach. Got them for twenty-five per cent. less than the cost price
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in Seattle. I'll pull out a hundred per cent. on the deal. Now's the time to get in and buy from the quitters. They so soured at the whole frame-up they're ready to pull their freights at any moment. All they want's to get away. They want to put a few thousand miles between them and this garbage dump of
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creation. They never want to hear the name of Yukon again except as a cuss-word. I'm going to keep on buying outfits. You boys see if I don't clean up a bunch of money." "It's too bad to take advantage of them," I suggested. "Too bad nothing! That's business; your necessity, my opportunity. Oh, you'd never make a money-getter, my
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boy, this side of the millennium--and you Scotch too." "That's nothing," said Jim; "wait till I tell you of the deal I made to-day. You recollect I packed a flat-iron among my stuff, an' you boys joshed me about it, said I was bughouse. But I figured out: there's camp-meetin's an' socials up there, an' a nice, dinky, white shirt
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once in a way goes pretty good. Anyway, thinks I, if there ain't no one else to dress for in that wilderness, I'll dress for the Almighty. So I sticks to my old flat-iron." He looked at us with a twinkle in his eye and then went on. "Well, it seems there's only three more flat-irons in camp, an' all
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the hot sports wantin' boiled shirts done up, an' all the painted Jezebels hollerin' to have their lingery fixed, an' the wash-ladies just goin' round crazy for flat-irons. Well, I didn't want to sell mine, but the old coloured lady that runs the Bong Tong Laundry (an' a sister in the Lord) came to me with tears in her eyes,
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an' at last I was prevailed on to separate from it." "How much, Jim?" "Well, I didn't want to be too hard on the old girl, so I let her down easy." "How much?" "Well, you see there's only three or four of them flat-irons in camp, so I asked a hundred an' fifty dollars, an' quick's a flash, she
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took me into a store an' paid me in gold-dust." He flourished a little poke of dust in our laughing faces. "That's pretty good," I said; "everything seems topsy-turvy up here. Why, to-day I saw a man come in with a box of apples which the crowd begged him to open. He was selling those apples at a dollar apiece,
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and the folks were just fighting to get them." It was so with everything. Extraordinary prices ruled. Eggs and candles had been sold for a dollar each, and potatoes for a dollar a pound; while on the trail in ' horse-shoe nails were selling at _a dollar a nail_. Once more I roamed the long street with that awful restless
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