UP THE PACIFIC COAST 39 



train with our belongings — trunks, satchels, 

 rifles, and suit-cases. 



This done, with a toot of the steam whistle 

 of the Baldwin locomotive, w^hich pulled our 

 train, we were off for a ride over the famous 

 narrow-gauge White Pass Railroad. This 

 road is perhaps the most talked about of any 

 small railroad in the world. It is but a hun- 

 dred and ten miles long, but the difficulties of 

 its construction and the attendant cost, have 

 made it one of the greatest engineering feats of 

 the world's history. 



For a short distance the train runs over the 

 old White Pass Trail. It was over this trail 

 that the hordes of gold seekers slaved and 

 toiled along their weary way in i897-'98. 

 The men were pack-laden, yet eager-hearted 

 and hopeful, most of them believing that 

 Dame Fortune would surely smile on them 

 after all their labors and hardships. 



Our locomotive sputtered and worried up 

 the steep ascent until Dead Horse Gulch was 

 reached, where hundreds of tired and over- 

 laden horses in the lively times of these two 

 'fabled years, unable to go any farther, tottered 

 and fell over the sharp edge of the slippery 

 mountain, down — down, into the weird depths 

 of the forbidding-looking canyon below. 



