ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE. 7 



the route to the new Eldorado. Equally spread out, this number 

 would mean one dead animal for every sixty feet of distance! The 

 poor beasts succumbed not so much to the hardships of the trail as 

 to the inhuman treatment, or lack of care and assistance, which they 



received on the part of their owners. Once out of the line of the 

 mad rush, perhaps nnable to extricate themselves from the holding 

 meshes of soft snow and of qnagmires, they were allowed to remain 

 where they were, a food offering to the army of carrion eaters which 



