There is one side of the Klondike picture which has been kept in the background, but about which whispers are beginning to be heard. It is a picture of suffering and starvation. One of the returned fortune makers is quoted as saying:

"You would find it easier to believe the most wonderful yarns I could tell you of the wealth of the country than some of the hardships I have known many men to undergo. Men can suffer a great deal and almost forget it if they eventually become rich, but for every man who has returned with a sack of dust there are now one hundred poor devils stranded and starving in that country.

"When I say starving I mean it literally. It seems incredible that a man would see another -his neighbor, at that-slowly dying by inches for want of food and deliberately refuse him a pound of bacon or pint of beans, yet that thing is happening every day, and God only knows how many frozen corpses will make food for wolves on Klondike this winter. When I left there was not enough food in the country to supply those already there, and as boats cannot take in much more before the river freezes, how are

hundreds now on their way there to exist? It is not that men are selfish or avaricious, but few of the old miners have more than enough to keep them through the winter, and it is only a question of preserving their own lives or those of others."

It is likely to be as bad next winter. The united efforts of the Alaska Commercial Company and the North American Transportation and Trading Company cannot transport over 4500 tons of freight up the river this season, and not until next February can stuff be freighted over from Dyea, Juneau and other points down along the southern coast. Prices for food and other supplies were almost beyond belief last winter. Flour was $120 a hundred weight at one time, and beef from $1 to $2 a pound. Moose hams sold for about $30, or $2 a pound. Ordinary shovels for digging brought $17 and $18 apiece. A few crates of eggs were brought in about March I by pack horses, and these sold readily for $3 to $5 a dozen. They were not fresh by any means.

Wages, however, were proportional; $2 per hour were common wages and even in the summer a man can command $1.50 per hour, or from $15 to $20 a day.

A new arrival at Dawson City, writing to his brother, says:

"This is a great camp, and a conservative estimate of its richness sounds like exaggeration. I have been here now twelve days and cannot get a hold of anything. I cannot even buy a foot of ground in the town, not to mention the diggings, values are so extremely high. Every foot of ground in this district is claimed, and there are hundreds of prospectors in the adjacent country looking for other rich ground. The gravel must be very rich in gold or nobody wants it. From the amount of gold dust and nuggets I have seen in Klondike, and the mad hunt for it, the district must be all they claim for it."

The mines of the Yukon are of a class by themselves, and it is necessary to follow new methods for getting the gold. To begin with, the ground is frozen. From the roots of the moss, which is often a foot thick, to the greatest depth that ever has been reached the ground is as hard as a bone. The gold is found in a certain drift of gravel, which lies at varying depths, often as far down as twenty feet. Only that portion of the gravel just above hard pan-by which

is usually meant clay-carries gold in any quantity, and in favored localities this particular gravel is extraordinarily rich.

As in nearly all placer mines, the low places of what has formerly been the bed of the creek are the richest, the deposits decreasing toward the outer edges.

The size of a claim is fixed by agreement among the miners of any particular locality. It is a section of the creek of a certain lengthsometimes 200 feet, sometimes 500-and it extends from rim to rim in width. The reason of this variableness in the size of the claims on the different creeks is that on some a greater length is required to make them worth a man's while to work them. The paying deposits may be scattered so a man could make wages only by working here and there over a large territory. Of course, the conditions surrounding the first discovery made on a creek are the basis for fixing the size of a claim on that stream. The discoverer of a new field is allowed two claims, while all others are permitted to take but one at a time. However, when a locater has worked out his assessment of a few days' work he is at liberty to take another. When a sufficient number of men

arrive on a new creek to make it impracticable to work together in harmony without organization, they hold a meeting and elect one of their number as a register or clerk, and thereafter a record is made of all locations and all transfers, for which a small fee is charged.

In prospecting the usual method is followed, i. e., sinking holes to bed rock across the stream and testing the dirt until the pay streak is found.

Having located his claim, the miner scrapes off as much moss as he can, and, turning a stream of water on to the frozen ground, gradually thaws, scrapes and digs his ditch. The gold lies at bed rock, fifteen to twenty feet below the surface. A drainage ditch must then be dug, a dam built and sluice boxes placed.

Winter mining has been experimented with to some extent. Work cannot be started until the cold weather is settled beyond the possibility of a surface thaw, nor can it be continued beyond the first promise of spring. A fire is built and kept burning until the ground beneath is thawed to bed rock, after which the drift is removed, leaving a hole several feet wide. By banking the fires against the side of the hole every night. and removing the soft earth next morning, a