SC OWING ON THE YUKON. 



13 



board. My object in taking her was to go 

 down the river until I came to a settlement 

 of tents, hoping some new strike would be 

 made, and the Americans who had been 

 driven out of Dawson by laws and grafting, 

 would make a town at least for the winter. 

 This would give me a chance to do some 

 surveying and perhaps stake out a claim. 

 The chance didn't come, however. The men 

 all landed in Circle City, and from there 

 most of them took steamers to St. Michaels. 

 The Gov. Stoneman was in trouble from 

 the start. She would no sooner get off a 

 bar than she would be on again. She drew 

 5 feet of water, which was 2 feet too much. 

 Her captain knew nothing about river navi- 

 gation and her one Indian pilot was stupid. 

 At 40 mile post the captain had a chance to 

 take on a good Indian pilot but he wouldn't 

 pay his price. At 70 mile river the tug stuck 

 on a bar for 3 hours. The captain cut us 

 loose and said, " make a landing when you 

 can." Our scow landed 8 miles down the 

 river. Several hours later a small boat came 

 to us with some moldy oatmeal, some flour, 

 coffee, beans and corn beef, with a message 

 from the captain to go to Circle City, where 

 we could get food. We had to use the corn 

 beef cans to cook everything in. We made 

 a paste of the flour and cooked it on sticks. 

 It took more than 2 hours to get a meal of 

 this kind. Before we got to Circle City more 

 than half of the men were too sick to go 

 ashore. We often ran on bars and then all 

 who were able would tumble into the water 



and shove the boat off. We were in bad 

 shape when we landed and several of the 

 men had to be taken to the hospital that was 

 run by Miss Dean and another lady from 

 New York City. There were many scurvy 

 patients. 



Circle City is the largest log cabin town 

 in the world. Only a few of these cabins 

 were occupied, the miners all having left, 

 the summer before, for the Klondike. The 

 mines are 60 miles back in the hills and the 

 mosquitoes own them in July. I started for 

 the mines, however, to prospect several 

 days. I found the best claims about all 

 worked out, and every creek staked out, as 

 was the Klondike. For 3 days the city was 

 covered with a heavy cloud of smoke, and 

 the saloons kept lights burning all day. The 

 ashes fell on us like snow, which showed the 

 fire was close. 



The captain of the tug came in on the 

 other scow, and the passengers held a 

 miners' meeting to see what we would do 

 with him. Some wanted to thrash him, but 

 they decided to take all the money he had on 

 his person, which was about half what we 

 paid him, and let him go. He had deceived 

 us in many ways when we bought the tick- 

 ets. 



On July 27th a paper was brought to us > 

 and was read to 300 anxious Americans. We 

 also got news of the killing of Soapy Smith 

 by Frank Ried. The latter was my partner 

 in laying out the town of Skaguay. He died 

 later from a shot Smith had inflicted. 



AMERICAN COOT, FULICA AMERICANA. 

 See page 58. 



