144 
[Feb. 23, itg^ 
"Tell your father to come down," he called, as I was 
getting into the wagon. 
"Tell your mother to come down." called his wife as I 
rode away. 
"Say, bring your woman down," he called as loud as he 
could when I was getting far off. 
Then, as we rolled over the bridges, Almon came run- 
ning after as if he or I had forgotten something. "'Good- 
by. come soon," he called at the strength of his lungs. 
And I stood up in the wagon, and making a trumpet of 
my hands, at the full strength of my lungs I called back. 
"I will." Chas. WiNTHROP Sawyer. 
Yukon Notes. 
- K 
The Seamy Side of the Klondike. 
Old man McNeally, who has been to every mining ex- 
citement of consequence in the last fifty years, and who 
came to the Klondike direct from Bulwaj^o. South Africa, 
was very much amused at the ideas some of the Klon- 
dikers had of finding gold. Where a place hatl real merit, 
he said, perhaps 200 men out of 20,000 found gold. The 
remaining 19,800 found nothing but experience as far as 
mining is concerned. Mr. Casey, who followed gold 
rushes as a business and is a town site promoter, cor- 
roborated the remark and stated that at Randsburg, m 
Southern California, the town lots sold for more money 
than the mines ever produced. The Klonddce is un- 
doubtedly a remarkable gold strike, but it has bsen boomed 
far above its merits in certain respects. Most of the men 
who went in in 1896 did surprisingly well. Many who 
went in in i8p7 were equally lucky, but of those who 
went in in 1898 new to the cotmtry the number of suc- 
cessful men is hardly worth consiaeration. 
In the winter of 1896-1897 there were probably a thou- 
sand men on the Yukon. The winter of 1897-1898 tkere 
were approximately 5oOO, of whom the great majority 
had come from Seattle and Pacific coast towns. the 
present winter there are upwards of 40,000. 
There has been little or nothing to warrant the last 
rush All the profitable mining and business enterprises 
had been taken up before these men came. They were 
nothing more than a sacrifice offered up to the trans- 
portation companies and the mining claim swindlers, who 
hold up their hands in holy horror at the suggestion ot 
working themselves the valuable properties they otter 
for inve-^tment. Certain of the transportation companies 
have a heavy charge to answer for. Corporations have 
no souls to lose, but I can fancy that individual membsrs 
of these companies may some time or other be visited by 
a nightmare of the Frozen North and given a realizing 
^ense of the ruin their cupidity has caused. Bony arms 
from famine stricken bodies will point at them and 
human forms rotted with scurvy will make the accu.sing 
ee-^ture Thev will see poor Madison, who lost both legb 
and arms by 'freezing, and in his derpiir refused nour- 
ishment to his maimed body and died. And perhaps 
they will know -omething of the gnef of helpless women 
and children pining for their loved ones, wrecking then- 
lives Jar away, where 
"In the desolate regions of Death, in the vastness 
Of the grim and impiacable Xorth, in the fastness 
or want and the sl<eleton spectre of Cold, 
Sits ihe Ice King." 
There certainly will be some retribution jhe men 
who persistently catch up every false ^'^^.o^ °f ,^'!,f 
they would not themselves credit for an instant, and m- 
uring'y advertise the news, with the sole object of in- 
creasing llic revenues of their steamships or railroads or 
trading companies. They are carefu not to make the 
statements on their own authority, but they see to it 
that Se reports gain circulation. In reveral instances we 
aw report's of fold strikes .started by meiYvho hoped 
to swindle a few outsiders in a modest way hy se linj 
clainis These reports were caught up by the agents ot 
t anspcrtadon companies and the press and heralded as 
eospel news of pristine purity. The number of dollars 
fo the pan taken cut was definitely stated and he new 
creek was declared a bonanza. The result would be a 
c er lin number of unsophisticated go d sedcers ent.ced 
to the spot and stripped of their money, and n he end 
of food, sirength, courage and ^ehef m God or mam 
•In some instances claims vyere salted with gold pur 
chased from successful returning ,^ ^/^'^^.^^^ffi 
tirular case in mind, where I was personally approacne.l 
and asked to boom a property that was known to be 
barren Claims were to be sold cheap, and an important 
Government official was to get 50 per '^^"l; Jj= pf^^^; 
for giving the tip to newcomers who asked his advice. 
Anv other man can tell such stories from his own ex- 
n^rLce To give a more extended field of operations, 
fhe Copper River country was boomed by some ct the 
same men who exploited the Klondike. There hadn 
beTn any Rold found there at the time and there hasn i 
been any found since. Yet thousands of men. V far- 
bled and fictitious reports, were induced to prospect thai 
country and a percentage have left their bones from 
Valdes Glacier to the Tanana. 
The Yukon is a dangerous country only m a rela ive 
sen "e The crime of the promoters lies m indticmg un- 
fitted men to go there and holding out impossible prizes 
before then . Men who go in as I did for the experience 
and as a rest from business, without any particular neces^ 
<iitv for succeeding more than governs a man m tne 
oSside world and who like a rough life, will not find it 
a bad country One should not put much faith in the 
mining however. The letter which follows shows how 
Tn old mi?Jr regards the Klondike. I do not give the 
name of the man who wrote it.because I have not his per- 
Sion to do so, but he is one of that rare breed ot 
e^pl^Fng prospectors who spend their lives m the rough- 
est and least known countries-a man who knows the 
world's white roof tree." and whose eyes have gazed on 
Ilenf^rags and abysmal gorges with only the screaming 
"'f^8^T"cro"ssed the Arctic timber belt, 2.000 miles 
taWng f™ur years to the trip. He traded and prospected 
in Northern British Columbia. On the Athabasca ne 
Set three Montana miner., one of whom was Dancing 
Bin and spent some time prospecting with them. He 
^.covered ?he Onineca Mining District 600 miles north 
of Kamloops, which was the most prosperous camp 
of its time. Recently he turned up at Cook's Inlet, In 
the summer of '97 he was in the Klondike. Writing from 
Dawson, Nov. 17, 1897, he says: 
"I have not been able to get hold of anything I thought 
would pay. My best chance was what they call a lay 
here; in other countries it would be a lease. The other 
day I had to throw it up. Seventy-five per cent, of the 
lays don't pay. There are thircy-five or forty good claims 
here; balance are common; hardly wages. 
'"When I got here everything was located that was 
worth anything. Everything is staked — brooks, creeks, 
ravines, gulches and hills — all in speculation. All expect 
to sell next spring, when the Cheechakoes (Hudson 
Bay Chinook for tenderfeet) get in. 
"Grub is starvation prices: Flour, $75 per sack (Solbs.) 
to-day; bacon, $1.25 per pound." 
[No orders were accepted for provisions at stores in 
Dawson, according to Mr. Baker, of the A. C. Company, 
after Sept. 13, as goods were not received up river. Pre- 
vious orders were filled in part only, though later some 
orders were filled from caches belonging to the traders.] 
"I think I can live till June if I don't freeze to death. 
Thieves so plenty you have to sit down on your grub to 
keep them from stealing it, and, friend, it is the worst 
mining camp I ever got into, and God knows if I ever 
get cut of this I will try never to get into another like 
it. 
"Seventy-five per cent, of the old-timers are praymg to 
get cut of the country. I have not made any money 
and don't expect to. If I can raise one sack of flour 
next July I will try to pole up the river to a country where 
there is something to eat. All the talk here is of grub." 
Why is it that the transportation companies do not 
publish such letters? They get them often enough. 
J. B. BURNHAM. 
Just About a Boy.— XVIL 
"This here's whut yeh call sage brush, is it?'_' inquired 
the boy, as he climbed up in the wagon seat with one of 
the highly scented shrubs in his hand and turned it 
over and over, inspecting every branch and leaf. "Seems 
's 'ough it'd ought to grow bigger'n that if it was goin' 
to grow 't all, but I reckon they's a reason why it don't 
if a feller juss know'd it." 
'•Well." I replied, "you notice that this ground is 
very hard, and that water is pretty scarce— two condi- 
tions that have helped to pruduce this knotty, gnarly 
little excuse for a tree. I have seen them further west 
where they grew 6 or 8ft. high in the creek bottoms 
near water. Take it up in the foothills this side of the 
main range, where the soil is fairly good and the water 
is plenty, there you will see it grow to a good-sized 
bush." T 1 - 1 
"Hain't much water here 't any time o year, I sh d 
judge, juss fr'm th' looks o' things, is they?" 
"No, not very much. Y"qu see, this country is bad 
lands— that is Pine Ridge off yonder where you can see 
that chain of hills with the evergreens on. Ovtr here 
is the South Fork of the Cheyenne River, where it runs 
around the' south edge of the Black HiHs. . .r, rather, be- 
tween the hills and the bad lands. 
"This is a curious country up here, you notice. Ihe 
line of formation is as clear between the hills and the 
bad lands as though they were miles apart Here 
the water is loaded with alkali— across the Cheyenne 
River it is good. There is no grass nor rocks here to 
speak of and across the river both are plenty. Here 
it is bad lands; there it is mountains and fairly good sod.' 
"That's kind o' curious, ain't it? What makes it that 
-^I't is the formation, that is all— just a geological 
freak The bad lands are a sedimentary formation and 
the hills are an upheaval. The probabilities are that 
what we see in the present Black Hills country is noth- 
ing more nor less than the tops nf a half-buried moun- 
tain range, and that the country we are traveling over 
now is the bottom of some ancient lake that— 
"Whoa! gimme llr shotgun!" 
The bov grabbed the .gun and tumbled out of the 
wagon in' a 'reckless way that endangered himself and 
the^ whole outfit, but, boylike, landed on his feet and 
ready for business. Walking back and to one side of the road 
a few paces, he flushed a pair of pintail' grouse, both 
of which came tumbling down as the gun cracked twice 
in quick succession. ^, , „ -, 
"What kind o' prairie chickens d yeh call them? he 
a<;ked as he climbed back and inspected his birds. i 
never' saw no chickens like them down 'long th river at 
^^'"No I <^uess you never did. Those birds are pintail 
<^rouse, a^d the prairie chicken is a different grouse 
alto<^ether. This one lives up here along the streams, 
and'only comes up in the high country to nest. You 
.should have left them both alone, as they are probably 
a pair that are nesting around here sorne place 
"That's so," said the boy. "Fact is, I never thought 
nothin' 'bout it when I shot 'em I juss seen a new 
kind n- bird 'n took 'em in. Reckon I 11 haff to r mem- 
ber 'bout sich things after this too— less n were short o 
All^davTong we drove over the clay hills and along 
the sage'brush flats, crossing the Cheyenne River with- 
out accident in time to go into camp on the north 
bank where a little clump of cottonwood trees made 
ns feel as if we had friends near by mstead of bemg 
itist a wandering outfit all alone m the wilderness, and 
an Indian wilderness at that for ^^'^ ,^'1^;^. so very 
many miles from the spot where old Sitting Bull got 
the long call for the happy hunting grounds xn after 
^^We would sotsn be itx among the Black Hills now, and 
the boy kept up a rapid fire of questioning that got me 
busv finding answers for. , , .1 
"Sav gee'" he remarked, as he put the kettle on coii- 
taining'the two grouse, with the idea of producing one of his 
camrstews-made from any kind of game that came 
Itandv seasoned with vegetables and ^ a bit ot pork 
"Sav I'm iuss hankerin' fer a crack at a' elk er deer e 
bear-don't care much which, but I , want to git a shot 
at tomp'n big. This here ole -45-70 0 mme s juss gittm 
fusty f^ somp'n to do. Here we been out two weeks 
'bout 'n' we hain't seen nothin' bigger'n a coyote, 'ceptin' 
them two antelope down 'n th' sand hills, 'n' yeh wouldn't 
let me shoot at them." 
"Look here, son, I told you why you shouldn't shoot 
antelope, or deer either, for that matter, in the spring, 
didn't I? Now here you are getting bloodthirsty again, 
and you don't stop to consider that we have plenty to 
eat, and that big game in the spring is the last thing any 
white man wants to eat anyhow. Now, you just keep 
your ammunition until we run out of grub or some Sioux 
wants our hair for his own personal decoration; then 
you may blaze away to your heart's content. Otherwise, 
don't get fooHsh and do things that you might regret." 
"I guess they's a heap more sense 'n ihey is poetry in 
that, too," said the boy. good naturedly. 'T ought to 
know better, 'n' I do know better, too, 'n to kill things 
'n th' spring, but I reckon a fe'.ler gits sort o' fergetful 
like, sometimes, 'n' juss wants to kill cAeryihing he sees 
juss cos he can. Course, bears 'n' kiotes don't^count, 'n' 
'f ever I run 'crost a bear I'm goin' to shoot 'n' keep a 
•shootin' tuU I git him er haff to run." 
"You had better give any bear that you meet m this 
part of the country the right of way unless you've things 
all your own way," I answered. "They grow pretty big 
up here, and they have a nasty habit of clawing people 
all to pieces after you shoot them full of holes. They 
have a way of living long enough to damage a man 
pretty considerably after they are shot through the heart." 
"We'l," said the youngster, reflectively, chewing a 
straw as he looked into the blaze, "they's one thing sure; 
if I see a bear 'n' kin git a good stiddy shot at his ole 
head I'm goin' to crack away, 'n' I bet he won't feel 
much like eatin' me up after one of these ole .4.S;70s o' 
mine goes through him 'tween his year 'n' his eye." 
"You had better put it a little further back, for a bear's 
brain is mostly behind his ears and pretty low down. 
Aim low and \vell back and you have a chance to break 
his neck and to brain-shoot him, in which case he would 
probably be through with the troubles of this mundane 
sphere." 
"Huh! Gittin' funnv, ain't yeh, on this here bear 
talk." 
"Oh, no; just giving a rank young tenderfoot a few 
pointers, thats' all. I think, however, that you will not 
need many pointers on what to do if you meet one of 
these bears that run through this country — you'll be 
mostly running." 
"Oh, I dunno! Course I ain't goin' to take no fool 
chances with a big bear; but if one of them gives me a 
haff a show I'll juss everlastin'ly lambaste him full o' 
holes er quit shootin' — that's a sure thing." 
"Better let him get away if he will, my boy. They're 
mighty unhandy to have around the house." 
"We'll see," "he answered, reluctant to give up. and I 
tliought perhaps he'd better be taken care of while we 
w^re up there for fear he would do something he would 
regret if he met a big bear. However, my fears were 
groundless, for he was with big Ike Ward when he met 
his bear, and Ike did all the killing, while the boy stood 
by and took a big dose of experience that might be called 
bear cure. " 
"How long '11 it be Tore we git into real mount ins? ' 
he asked, as he rolled up in his blanket and waited for 
sleep. 
"About to-morrow or next day. I guess — depends on 
the trail we take. If we go up Skull Creek we ought to 
camp about Kara Creek or at the foot of Inyan Kara 
Mountain day after to-morrow night; I .should think." 
"Injun Kara? Whut kind o' a name's that?" 
"Sioux. Means a mountain inside of a mountain. Now 
let's go to sleep. I'm dog tired." 
"Aw right." El Comancho 
The Crow as a Nest Robber. 
Glen Ellyn, 111., Feb. 6.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
Ahhough I disclaim all intentions of wilfully condemning 
an alreadv much prejudiced and perhaps beneficial 
species, yet, in reviewing the case as presented under the 
above heading in your issue of Nov. 5, 1898, I— from 
my own experience — cannot but .sympathize with the 
position taken by its author, Kenewah. 
The question of the crow's usefulness occasionally 
comes to the front, and with much diversity of opinion 
pro and con. There are many who still hold views 
similar to mine concerning .the destructive habits of 
corvus. On the other hand, those who have given 
the subject an exhaustive study, and are better placed 
perhaps for conducting an examination of this kind, 
make a far more conservative estimate with regard to the 
true economic status of this much-despised "black 
brigand of the wood.s." In other words, we find that 
the crow's bad habits are in a great measure counter- 
balanced by the good service he renders in the destruc- 
tion of noxious insects. This appears to be particularly 
true of certain sections in the New England States, and 
to a crreater or les=; degree doubtless over the bird's entire 
range. And here is the phase of the question which 
ha'= given rise to much speculation: We know that 
the crow is a pilferer, and perhaps realize that during 
certain seasons he may be a friend to the farmer, but 
do we know equallv well that his bad turns are fully 
offset in all cases bv his better and less known habits? 
That the crow's habits vary in different localities is 
quite apparent, at least to me. Here m Du Page 
county 111.. I do not know that he has shown a 
marked preference for the sprouting corn. Neither do 
I know that the farmers of this section resort to the 
customary devices to drive them from their fields, al- 
though considerable corn is raised yearly m this county, 
while crows are very numerous, Untortunately httle ex- 
amination of the stomach contents has been made but. 
as the crows seem to work a good deal.m the meadows, 
they doubtless devour quantities of field insects, to- 
gether with occasional meadow rodents. A staple article 
of diet here and of which it is known that great quan- 
Hties are eaten, is the crawfish. This is attested to by 
the numerous remains of these crustace,ins which are 
