IN GREEN ALASKA 



them to get away. It was a story of hardships and 

 disappointment that they had to tell us, — yes, and 

 of scurvy and death. Over three thousand men had 

 gone into the Copper River region a year or more 

 before on the wildest, vaguest rumor of gold. They 

 had gone in hurriedly and slyly, as it were, so as to 

 be ahead of the crowd. Each man had taken sup- 

 plies to last him a year, at least. Now they were 

 coming out destitute and without one cent's worth 

 of gold ; many of them had died. Scurvy had broken 

 out among them, had sv/ept away scores of them, 

 and had lamed and disabled others. Their toils and 

 privations had been terrible; snow, glaciers, moun- 

 tains, swollen rivers, had blocked their way. Most 

 of them had abandoned their unconsumed supplies 

 and extra blankets, content to get out with their 

 lives. They were from the East and from the West, 

 lumbermen from Maine and Pennsylvania and old 

 miners from California and Colorado. They were a 

 sturdy, sober-looking set of men that we saw, no 

 nonsense about them. Such hardships and disap- 

 pointments seem to sweep away everything affected 

 and meretricious in a man, and uncover and bring 

 out the bedrock of character, if there is any in him. 

 In this crowd two large, powerful men, father and 

 son, were especially noticeable. The father, a man 

 probably of sixty-five years, had nearly died with 

 scurvy and was still very lame, and the tenderness 

 and soHcitude of the son toward him warmed ray 



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