60 LIFE SKETCHES OF A JAYHAWKER 



could gain that perhaps the southeastern part of Alaska, where the land is 

 level, enough will at some time be brought under cultivation. Of course 

 the best land is generally timbered, and would have to be cleared. Further 

 north, in the neighborhood of Cook's Inlet, there are certain sections of 

 land that might be brought under cultivation quite easily, judging from the 

 way it produces grass, but the largest portion of it is covered with moss 

 from a foot to eighteen inches deep, that is only fit to raise knats and mos- 

 quitoes, where you will find more to the acre than any part of the world. 

 No one can work without a veil and then it is almost past endurance and I 

 don't see any remedy where that moss grows; if it was swamped it might 

 be drained, but you can't drain that moss. 



If anything ever induces one to go to Alaska, it will be for mining and 

 not for agriculture. Mining interests there is only in its infancy, when they 

 get railroads and transportation becomes cheaper there will be vast amounts 

 of gold and other minerals taken from the ground; enough to enrich — I was 

 going to say the entire world — but certainly Alaska has a great future. 



After returning from Alaska I took up the windmill business for some 

 time and then drifted off into the orchard business with only moderate 

 success, for the reason that the prices dropped until there was not much in 

 the business, but since that the prices has more than doubled on fruit as 

 well as on the land. I still retain some interest in that business. 



CHAPTER XI. 



When I was on Woods Creek, there was a Frenchman living in a cabin 

 near by and we became pretty well acquainted, and I had told him of our 

 rich mine on the Tuolumne River, and he was quite anxious to get an inter- 

 est in it and offered, if I could get hold of it, to furnish all the capital to 

 open the mine and work it and share and share alike. I made all the inqui- 

 ries I could about the company that had worked it the year before, but could 

 not get any tidings of one of them. I knew it was risky to go ahead and 

 take possession, for according to mining laws, we were not required to keep 

 our tools in the mine on river claims, where the river had been turned the 

 previous year. I was entirely too conscientious about the matter and did 

 not risk it. I knew there was a fortune there for any person or company 

 that could work it. It was a sure thing. I always regretted that I had not 

 gone ahead and worked it, for I never heard of one of the company after- 

 ward. Another time I had let a fortune slip by. 



While in the mines, every little while there would come news of rich 

 strikes being made at some remote place and then everybody wanted to go 

 and it was customary to want to get started and get there first, everybody 

 being the same, anxious to be the first on the ground. People would be 

 starting at all times of day and night, and four times out of five the strikes 

 were perfect fakes, but everyone was just as willing to go again the next 

 time an alarm came along. They were better known as stampedes. 



About this time I heard of one up on the Fine Gold Gulch and very rich, 

 about a hundred miles distant, with the Indians pretty bad. That made the 

 inducements greater than they would have been with no Indians, for that 

 gave it life and little more variety. We fed on excitement here a good deal. 

 In early times it was the spice of life. 



