S

CHAPTER XXXVI

ROMANCES OF THE KLONDIKE

IT beside me on the top of King Solomon's Dome and listen to some of the romances of the Klondike,

true stories surpassing the fiction of the "Arabian Nights." King Solomon's Dome is the very centre of the Klondike gold region. It is a mountain higher than the average peaks of the Alleghanies, rising three thousand feet above Dawson, and I have climbed to its top in an automobile. There at the west is Bonanza Creek, where, twenty-five years ago, gold was first found, and running into it is Eldorado Creek, where Swift-Water Bill Gates and Charlie Anderson, the Lucky Swede, as well as scores of others, made their fortunes.

The man who first discovered gold in the Klondike was George Carmack, a New Englander who had come to Alaska from North Adams, Massachusetts. He married an Indian and he had three Indians with him when he was prospecting on the ground just below us. As the story goes, one of the Indians who had gone to the creek for some water saw the gold shining there in the sand. Taking up some dirt on the edge of the creek, the men washed it, and within a half hour had recovered twenty dollars' worth of gold. Carmack then laid out claims for himself and his three companions, each of which brought a fortune that all too soon slipped through its owner's fingers.

The news of the discovery spread like wildfire over the

Although the earth contains only a few cents' worth of gold to the ton, the use of giant dredges to scoop up the gravel from the beds of the Klondike and Yukon rivers enables the mining companies to operate at a profit.

With all the force of a shell from a big gun, a giant stream of water is played against the hillside, washing the earth into sluice boxes, where a layer of mercury catches even the most infinitesimal particles of gold.

North. It was telegraphed to all parts of the world and by the next year men were rushing to the Klondike from every direction. They staked both sides of the Bonanza. They set up claims along Eldorado, Dominion, and Hunker creeks, and dug out gold all along the valley of the Klondike River.

Charlie Anderson's claim was No. 29 Eldorado and it cost him six hundred dollars. He had saved this money from his wages as a pick-and-shovel miner at Forty Mile, and bought the mine one night when he was too drunk to know what he was doing. When he awoke the next day he wept bitter tears and asked the men who thought they had swindled him to take back the claim and give him his money. They refused, and so Anderson walked eighty miles to the Klondike and started work. He found only a hole in the ground, but he thawed and dug eighteen feet deeper and came upon a fortune. When he made the first strike the men who had sold him the claim were near by and asked with a sneer what he had found. He replied: "Ay tank Ay got some gold here," and showed them his pan. There were fourteen hundred dollars' worth of gold nuggets in it, and the claim eventually yielded between one and two million dollars. But, like other Klondikers, Anderson ran through his money as fast as it came. He was cheated by every one, and ended as a day labourer somewhere in the States.

In coming down the Yukon to Dawson the captain of the steamer told me many stories about Charlie Anderson, whom he had known well. Said he:

"Anderson had been doing railroad work in the States, but was discharged, and that drove him to Alaska. When he struck it rich he took out more than two hundred thou

sand dollars the first year, and during the next four years his claim yielded him almost two million dollars."

"What did he do with the money?" I asked.

"He spent it as fast as he got it. He kept a gang of gamblers and dance hall girls about him and gave away thousands. When he was at the height of his fortune and had an income of a half million a year, he fell in love and was married. He took his wife to San Francisco, where he bought her a house and gave her all the money she could spend besides. When he was about at the end of his fortune he told me she had cost him a quarter of a million. He then pulled out of his pocket a garter with a clasp set with a diamond as big as the end of your thumb, and said: "And this is all I have to show for it. I am almost broke now, but I will go back and find some more.'

"Anderson's claim was then played out," the captain continued. "He tried to find others, but failed. In his first trips with me he travelled in state, buying all the liquor and cigars that the ship had and standing treat to the passengers. On his last trip he booked in the steerage. He was dead broke. Shortly after we started I saw him, dressed in rough clothes, sitting at the prow of the boat. I went up to him and said:

"Well, Charlie, it is different with you from what it used to be.'

"He looked up and his eyes filled with tears.

"'Yes,' said he, 'I am travelling steerage, for I have not enough money to pay first class.'

"I was so sorry for him that I put him in one of the first cabins and took him home without charge."

Swift-Water Bill Gates' story was a good deal like Anderson's. He was a Portuguese, who got his nickname