Wm M 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Yukon Notes.— IX. 
Winds and Waves. 
Lakk BknnETI' occupies a fiord-like cleft ill the niouii- 
lains running due north for the first twelve miles, and 
then turning almost at right angles to the east. Just be- 
yond the angle in the lake the West Arm enters, though, 
is in the case of the Taku arm of Tagish Lake, the arm 
is really the main lake by right of size and conformity 
to the general direction of the lake basin. The Windy 
Arm of Tagish is perhaps more honestly entitled to be 
railed an arm, though it does not appear to have any 
exclusive monopoly of the winds over the other channels 
Di the mountain lakes, Bennett and Tagish. These lakes 
ind their bifurcations are mountain troughs, serving as 
linnels for the wind, and in the passes of the Coast Range 
he word wind means something more than is generally 
understood by men who were not raised over cyclone 
.ellars. 
It means a force that shoves and boosts, that carries 
i man along like a chip on a mountain torrent till an 
iddy is reached and then whirls him round and round and 
osses him in a corner flat, breathless and devoid of the 
:onceit that comes with the ability to walk on two 
legs. Perhaps the bather who has been buffeted by 
:he surf on a rough day can realize better the hold such 
i wind has on a man. 
It pulsates like the billows of the ocean, and when 
:Tie rush is greatest one might as well try to stand against 
t cataract of water. 
In Chilcoot Pass last winter we were repeatedly knock- 
td down by the wind, and it was there that I got my full 
pd realizing sense of its power. On > the lakes, when 
rozen, the ordinary winds are sufficient to move heavily 
oaded sleds, provided with sails, over a surface that is 
mything but smooth. When it blows a little harder the 
.ledgers have to look out. McNeally, the venturesome 
eader of the men working their way down to Dawson 
bver the ice, was out one day without a sail, when 
Boreas let out a few extra notches in the wind, and man 
trtd sled were whisked up and carried away. McNeally 
lad the sled tied to him or he was in harness and could 
lot get loose, which amounted to the same thing, and 
or a while he thought his checks had been called for, as 
le was being carried rapidly toward a part of Lake 
Bennett which was still open water. Fortunately a little 
itony island intervened, and he managed to throw the 
>ight of the sled rope over a rock and so checked his 
langerous course. 
Shipwrecks before the lake closed were of hourly oc- 
currence. Scarcely a party succeeded in crossing without 
swamping and damaging their supplies. The boats, as 
i rule, were overloaded. The builders had little idea of 
heir carrying capacity when knocking them together, 
md when the time came for loading no one would hear 
if leaving a pound of the outfit behind, no matter if the 
gunwales were awash. 
A popular young fellow, athletic and handsome, named 
McManus, and a Russian who was a member of the 
same party, were drowned at the time we crossed Ben- 
lett. In all we had personal knowledge of six other cases 
if accidental drowning, and heard rumors of a great 
nany more. « 
A Lesson in Rowing. 
The morning following our midnight experience with 
1 gale we were on the water again at 6 o'clock. The 
wind had abated and the lake was comparatively smooth. 
We tried sailing for a while and Mac got along fairly 
well until nearly noon, when he drifted on a lee shore 
again. The wind had died away almost entirely, and 
there was nothing for it but to row. But here there was 
i hitch. Mac knew no more about rowing than he did 
ibout sailing, and he had two boats to propel, which for 
a beginner is about twice as hard a task as rowing a 
single boat. I think he could have managed from 
the start with only one boat, but the rear boat of the 
tandem gave no end of trouble. Following in the ground 
swell, it had an aggravating way of running ahead diagon- 
ally at the most inopportune times, jerking Mac's boat 
round at right angles with the course he wished to pur- 
sue, and tangling him up hopelessly at times. It was 
no uncommon thing for the two boats to be lying side by 
side pointing in opposite directions, with Mac in a brown 
study over the problem, which on paper would have' 
been plain as day, but which for practical solution re- 
quired the cultivation of hand and eye, which is second 
nature. 
In a matter like this training is everything and advice 
and theory of the smallest possible value. Realizing this 
fact at length, we hit upon a plan which gave Mac the 
help he stood in need of, and by means of which he 
soon mastered the elements of rowing and managing a 
second boat towed astern. We made our four boats fast 
in single rile as the night before, mine leading and Mac's 
following, and after I got them started Mac dipped his 
oars in and for a while tried going through the mo- 
tions of rowing without pulling hard enough to throw 
his boats out of line. He soon gained confidence, and 
before long he was doing half the work of propelling our 
little flotilla. Occasionally his boat became unruly, but 
fastened as it was I could easily jerk it round into line., 
and for the first time since starting our rate of progress 
was satisfactory. 
Mac had plenty of aptitude for outdoor life, and it only 
required a little coaching of this kind to make an oars- 
man of him. Down at Fort Selkirk one day in Novem- 
ber he fired his rifle for the first ime, and in a few hours 
he had killed three or four red squirrels with half a 
dozen cartridges. 
At nightfall we turned at right angles with our form- 
er course around a rocky promontory, and found our- 
selves in the main part of Lake Bennett. 
A pall of fierce, black clouds was rapidly approaching, 
carrying in their wake as we soon learned wind and 
snow, and it was highly desirable that we should gain 
Some shelter before the storm broke. Nothing in the 
nature of a harbor was visible, but before we had a 
chance to become very miserable at the prospect we 
espied, just astern, the tiniest kind of a bay — Mac called 
it "a dent in the rocks"— and into this we steered as night 
settled down and the snow began to fly. 
Never was a harbor of refuge more welcome. The 
little bay had an entrance less than looft. in width. 
Across this we stretched an inch cable, making it fast 
to rocks at either end, and at intervals we tied the boats 
to the cable. The Indians had had some kind of a fish- 
ing station here, and there was a space leveled off on 
shore just large enough for our tent. Firewood was 
not lacking, and as soon as we had finished our prepara- 
tions for the night we had a rousing good supper, rolled 
oats, hot biscuits, horse meat, bacon and brown gravy, 
stewed peaches and tea. We also started some beans for 
another meal. 
Horse Meat on the Bill of Fare. 
Perhaps the horse meat needs explanation. In cold 
type the thing seems to need defense. To men who had 
seen all the brutality and suffering of the trail the idea 
was at first repulsive to a degree. Death came to the 
poor animals in horrible form, and the mute evidences 
on all sides were not conducive to a sharpened appetite. 
It came about in this way: llerrington went over to 
Shallow Lake one day to try to collect a. debt owed us 
"for freighting, and stopped over night with a man 
named Kline. Incidentally Herrington has since joined 
Kline's party. 
At supper he had some savory steak, juicy and tender, 
which possessed a characteristic flavor that, while it was 
grateful to the palate, proved conclusively the article 
did not come from any of the sources commonlv called 
LANDING FOR A CAMP. 
The tjipical Yukon boat is a craft 30 or 35ft. over all, made 
of whipsawn unseasoned planks. It is commonly built lap-streak 
and the seams caulked with oakum and daubed with a line of 
pitch a couple of inches wide, giving the boat a striped appear- 
ance. Square sailS. are generally provided, and from two to four 
sweeps for rowing, and a long oar at the stern for steering. At 
nightfall the boat is beached, the cargo taken out and cached 
on shore above the reach of waves, and camp made. In many 
cases last fall tents were not pitched. The night was divided 
into watches, with one man constantly on the lookout for storms 
or thieves, while the others of the party stretched themselves 
on the ground around an enormous camp-fire, which was kept 
blazing brightly all night. 
upon by the butcher. Herrington decided it was venison, 
and the conviction made the meat taste the nicer. He 
was loud in his praise of the steak, and Kline and Cusick 
and the others were evidently pleased at his appreciation, 
but in one way or another they managed to turn the 
conversation to other channels until after the meal was 
over. 
When they told him what he had been eating Herring- 
ton felt almost as badly as if it had been crow or turkey 
buzzard. The laugh was on him, and he wished the 
meat and what he had said about it were both in the 
oblivion from whence they had originated. 
But the words could not be recalled, though Herrington 
avers in his present condition the meat very easily might 
have been. A moment's reflection showed him the only 
thing to do was to bluff it out, and so he redoubled his 
praises of the dish. 
He not only did this, but he also inveigled me into 
eating some of it the following day. and then together 
we foisted the meat on the remaining members of the 
party. The upshot of this matter was that after the first 
qualms of outraged confidence were over we all were 
obliged to confess that the meat was good — far superior 
to the stringy ox meat of the trail. We procured part of 
a hindquarter and loin, and for several weeks horse meat 
was one of the leading items of our bill of fare. 
Mr. Kline had slaughtered a fine young horse in first- 
class condition, especially for food. He had no ailment 
and was properly bled and dressed. There seemed to 
be no reason why such meat should not be good, and 
as a result of eating it I have come to the conclusion that 
prime horse is one of the best of meats. 
Long Working Days. 
I am giving in detail a diary of our movements at the 
start, not so much that they are worthy of record as be- 
cause they are typical of what other people were doing. 
Every man leaving in October knew that he must work 
night and day if he could hope to reach the gold coun- 
try before the Yukon closed, and work days of twenty- 
four hours like ours at starting - were not uncommon. I 
talked with one party of three men who had rowed and 
sailed without rest from Bennett to Marsh Lake, nearly 
seventy miles. They had had unusually good luck in 
making time, but had been more than two days with- 
out sleep. 
After our first twenty-four ht ? c " r ork M^c I 
had three hours' sleep. The second day we were in our 
boats twelve hours and had about eight hours' 
rest. The third day we rowed all day and till 3 o'clock 
the following morning. It took us till 6 A. M. to care 
for our boats, pitch camp and breakfast, and we were up 
again at 10 A, M. 
A mail carrier coming up the river from Dawson in 
a canoe propelled by two Indians sighted our boats, 
anchored in front of camp, and because he knew the 
Mounted Police had some canvas boats inferred that we 
must belong to that body. He had mail for the police 
and he hailed us from the water so long and persistent- 
ly that at last an impression was made on our numbed 
senses and we awoke. I went down to the water to 
see what the man wanted, and he began inquiring for In- 
spector this and Sergeant that. It dawned on me that: 
he had broken our precious rest through a blunder, and 
I grew hot under the collar. The mail carrier had an 
inflated bossy way that was riling, and I wished for a 
good ripe rotten egg to throw at him. Unfortunately 
eggs of any kind are scarce and costly on the Yukon, but 
after I had talked to the man awhile I felt more comfort- 
able, and it is just possible that he learned there are other 
ways of locating a police camp than by green canvas 
boats. A fellow who has rowed all night is apt to be a 
little cross when he is waked for no reason and asked 
fool questions by a man who acts as if he owned you 
and was boss of creation besides. While we were making 
preparations to start Mac pointed out a diving duck in a 
little bay just below our camp. A rifle was at hand, and 
taking advantage of the moments when the duck was un- 
der water I walked out on a sand spit to within easy 
shooting distance. I fired and the bullet hit the duck, 
carrying away' part of its neck and chest. It had seen 
me and begun to dive, and despite* the terrible wound it 
actually got under water, and for a second it looked as if 
I had missed, the next moment, however, the duck was 
floating helplessly on the surface. Ducks were wild 
along the Yukon last fall, and were no easier to shoot 
than elsewhere. They were kept continually on the 
move by passing boats, and most of the shots offered 
were at long range. 
Chance Meetings. 
A number of little things about the boats required 
attention, and it was two in the afternoon before we got 
off Irom our Caribou Crossing Camp. It was a beau- 
tifully calm afternoon, and we set for ourselves the task 
ol getting beyond the Windy Arm of the Tagish. 
As we rowed along we found ourselves m company 
with half a dozen other boats, each carrying a crew 
of five or six men. 
In one of these boats was Fred Simpson, of Mission 
ban Jose, Cal., the man who carried 1,700 newspapers 
through to Dawson, from which he cleared about $1,200 
selling most of the papers of a date six weeks back for 
$1 apiece. The next time I saw Simpson was on a dog 
sled on the frozen Yukon near Rink Rapids in Janu- 
ary. He was traveling with one of the members of the 
Canadian Provincial Legislature from Maple Leaf, Al- 
berta, and had sprained some of the muscles of his foot, 
so that he could not walk. Later, by the merest chance, 
I traveled from Skagway to Seattle on the same steamer 
with him. 
In another boat was the Myers outfit, from Rochester, 
N. Y. They had passed us at our dent-in-the-rock 
camp, and the following morning were destined to rouse 
us from much needed rest, much as the mail carrier 
had done, only in their case we felt no ill will, as it 
was the occasion of a hearty good-natured greeting. 
Mr. Myers told us that his party had bought cacvas 
boats for the descent of the fiver, but discarded them 
when they saw the rough water of Lake Bennett. 
We crossed Lake Nares, and passing through the 
connecting stream entered Tagish. It was an ideally 
tranquil scene that met our gaze. The low land at this 
end of the lake is well wooded with brilliant green 
forests of fir, spruce and pine, which, with the towering 
mountains behind, were reflected in the Swiss blue 
waters of the lake. On a yellow beach of shingle 
boats were drawn up here and there, and men were 
walking to and fro, some carrying stores or supplies 
ashore, some pitching tents, others caching the cargoes 
above high-water mark. 
Columns of smoke ascended among the trees, and from 
time to time we heard rifle shots from the eastward, 
where no doubt some one had found a flock of grouse, 
interspersed with the sound of chopping from all direc- 
tions or the fell of some tree destined for fire or bed. 
Some one on the nearest shore called out that there 
was a good camp site near by, and advised us to land. 
The thought of a hot supper and pleasant bed was en- 
ticing, but our work was laid out before us, and we did 
not turn aside. 
Hour after hour we rowed, while the sound of camp 
life gradually subsided till presently there was no other 
sign of life beneath the full round moon except occa- 
sional camp-fires on the beach. 
A breathless calm enveloped us when we passed the 
Windy Arm. The only' ripples breaking the silvery- ex- 
panse were those made by the passage of our boats. 
The night was eerie, and we tried to penetrate the dis- 
tance, which limited our vision, and discern if some- 
where there was not a trap set for us, some ambush of 
wind and wave, cunningly devised for our destruction. 
We could find no good bottom for our toats or suit- 
able protected bay for anchoring them, and it was 
well along toward morning that we finally found a slope 
of clay and beached them near the spot, I believe, where 
Henderson murdered his partner. 
That was an atrocious crime, loathsome in detail and 
cruel in execution. The miners fastened the murderer 
to a tree with a long chain until he was turned over to 
Capt. Harper, who happened along with a detachment 
of Mounted Police bound for Dawson. The dead man 
and his slayer were put in the same boat, and it is re- 
corded that living and dead lay side by side on the bot- 
tom, the murderer sleeping and evincing no sign of 
regret for his deed. 
In January I saw Judge McGuire at the Little Salmon 
River. Henderson's case was one of the first that would 
be brought before him after reaching Dawson. He 
said that he hoped he would be relieved from trying him, 
and thought it likely that justice would soon be meted 
