58 LIFE SKETCHES OF A JAYHAWKER 



we could raise and tramp the snow with thirty or forty men if we could 

 raise that many, and tramping snow all day is about as hard work as man 

 ever done. By this method the snow is packed hard enough so we could 

 use our sleds. Of course the more we use it the better it was. We could 

 then pitch our tents midway of the day's hauling; that is we would go as 

 far as we could go and return in a half day and then in the afternoon re- 

 peat the same and return to camp by night. In that way we were in camp 

 for our meals all the time and then we would have to make fifteen or 

 twenty round trips before we had all our freight brought forward and would 

 make another station ahead and repeat the same operation. After all our 

 outfit had been moved forward the last thing to come over the trail was the 

 horses. We would generally move them early in the mornings when every- 

 thing was frozen had. If a horse by any mishap would step off the trail he 

 would go in all over, nothing but his head sticking out of the snow, and 

 some times it would be very difficult to get them back on the trail again. 



When we got to the lake, it was the first place that our horses did us 

 any good. Here we could hitch three or four sleds together and one horse 

 pull them on the ice and travel right along. We had gotten all our stuff 

 across the lake when the ice broke up and was gone. If we had been a day 

 later it would have been too late. 



After leaving the lake we still had six miles to make all the way up 

 hill, where the horses were of no use as there was too much snow and when 

 we finally arrived at the mine on the fifth of May, found the snow still to 

 be from four to five feet deep, but that was no disadvantage to us as we 

 could get our logs to the saw pits much better than we could on the bare 

 ground. We had all our lumber to saw with whip-saws and bring down to 

 the mines on the snow. It took six thousand feet to supply our immediate 

 wants for building flumes, etc. We made all our pipe there on the ground. 

 It was cut and punched already to rivet together. 



When we were ready to go to work I had a job on my hands. The men 

 were all green about mining, there being no miners among them. I had 

 everything to see to and the work was scattered here and there and it just 

 kept me stepping lively. If I had even one man that could go ahead and 

 take the lead in any part of the work it would have helped me out a great 

 deal, however in a few days they got so they could saw lumber, and that 

 made it easier. We had four miles of ditch to make and I had to survey 

 that, and two or three canyons to cross where we had to flume, one of them 

 being fifty feet high. Our flumes were all three feet in width. I think it 

 was some time in August before we were ready to turn on the water which 

 made a pretty short season, for we had to get out of there as soon as the 

 snow commenced to fly. It is remarkable how soon the grass and all kinds 

 of vegetation comes on after the snow is off the ground. In a few days the 

 grass was knee high and a few more it was up to a man's waste. Berries 

 are the same way. You will see them in blossom and seemingly about long 

 enough to take a good nap the bushes are hanging full of ripe berries. It 

 is the greatest country for berries I ever saw. Many places you can see 

 the bears come almost every day to feed on them. We had all the bear meat 

 we wanted, besides moose, mountain sheep and small game, and it was 

 fat and nice, which helped out our grub bill a great deal as we had to keep 

 the pack train running all the time packing from Sunrise. 



