HORSE STAGE ON FISH LAKE. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



CONCLUSION. 



Leave for Fairbanks Stage-driving Mining Camps Hotsprings 

 Fairbanks Start for Valdez Strike-breakers Warm Weather 

 A Blizzard Stay in a Road-house Through the Keystone Canon 

 Arrive at Valdez Leave Alaska. 



ON Saturday, February 22, I started for Fairbanks, travelling 

 now in quite a new way, sitting in a horse stage drawn by four 

 horses, wrapped up in furs and rugs, and with nothing to do all 

 day but to sit still, now and then dropping off to sleep, and 

 upon the whole taking life easily while we were moving south- 

 ward at a rate of four and a half to five miles an hour. 



On the 23rd we reached Sullivan Creek and the little neigh- 

 bouring town, where we stopped a couple of hours for lunch. 

 The road-house was full of men, who loafed about apparently 

 unconcerned, but in reality waiting for the mail from the north. 

 Rumours had come to the mining camp that a new strike had 

 been made on the Kayukok, and that two men had taken 

 sufficient gold out of their claim to fill a five-gallon kerosene tin. 



They are strange places, these small mining camps. A man 

 goes wandering through the wilderness until he finds a likely- 

 looking place. Then he commences to " sink a hole," which 



