26 CAMP FIRES IN THE YUKON 



hunting clothes, ready for the trail; the provision 

 order had been packed in boxes and canvas bags and 

 looked like a real load. Dixon bought a half a 

 ton of horse feed, being oats at the current White 

 Horse quotation of $210 per ton; it seems that at 

 White Horse all prices for everything conceivable 

 are on a war basis of inflation, with all advantage 

 on the side of the seller and the purchaser having 

 no alternative except unconditional surrender. The 

 prices for provisions are beyond belief, and ordi- 

 nary baled hay for horses costs $210 a ton, or just 

 ten cents a pound the result being that horses 

 seldom eat hay. 



Dixon had brought to White Horse a stout 

 wagon, drawn by four horses, and a buckboard 

 which would seat four of us, and the plan was to 

 travel by wagon and buckboard along the river val- 

 lies westward to Lake Kluane, a distance of one hun- 

 dred and sixty miles, and then abandon the wagon 

 for pack-train transport across the mountains. Ac- 

 cordingly we began to load the wagon and when we 

 had finished the transport groaned under a weight 

 of 7,500 pounds of provisions and outfit. We 

 started the wagon with George Wright as driver 

 and expedition horse wrangler, and Bruce the cook 

 and two of our party riding on the load; we started 

 it with a prayer, because we suspected our prayers 

 would be necessary to get the load to the top. The 

 sand was deep and soft, the wheels sank into the 



