Edward Roper

“ I, who had always been hitherto full of vigour, resourceful, hardly ever despondent, and hating to be idle for a moment, was leading a purely animal life, just eating and sleeping, with very little power, seemingly, of even thinking of the future.
It was then, as I supposed, Christmas Day; anyway, it was a very calm and quiet day. The northern lights were brilliant, and Patch and I were outside: I was gathering fuel and cutting some logs for the fire, he was rolling in the dry dust-like snow, and sniffing at the meat and salmon which hung frozen in the trees around us. ”

“ Once I remember springing up and grasping a white shirt and a red one which lay by the door, and tying them to a long branch which arched across the creek conspicuously, saying to myself, "It may attract some one's notice,"—for, eager as we had been all along to keep our presence secret, now I would gladly have given half, ay, all the gold we had obtained, to secure the companionship of a human being. ”

“ A very momentous time had arrived. "My dear May," I murmured, "that is smoke—that means a camp, most likely of white people. Our lonely life ends the moment we arrive there."
"Oh, what a good thing!" she cried; "but why look so serious?"
"God knows what will happen to us," said I. "We may find ourselves able at once to go on with comparative ease to Dawson and home. We may find obstacles in our way—bad characters, who knows what? But any way we have up to now, through God's good mercy, been kept from any great harm, and we will trust Him still." ”

“ We had by this time become so used to the toil and hardship of this mode of travel, that I was not surprised to find May in excellent spirits when I returned to camp. The brightness of the morning; the sunlight on the snow; the brilliant iridescence of the ice-bespangled branches of the trees, and the broader outlook across the white, wide expanse of the Klondyke; the knowledge of our having attained the first stage of our momentous journey safely ”

“ Where is May?"
She was by his side instantly. "Father! father, dear!" she cried, "we are saved; this good man has found us. He has plenty of food, and he will help us."
At which he, looking alive at last to the state of affairs, muttered, "Food, did you say, May—food? Ah! there's plenty to pay for it; give the man gold, any amount of it, for food—that is worth more than gold to us, my love!" ”

“ How could she love a rough, uncouth fellow like me, unkempt and dirty? I was all that then. It did not occur to me that she also was very far from presentable in civilised society. Her dress, like mine, was one mass of grease and blackness: the life we led amongst the smoke of the miserable slush-lamps, the cooking and grubbing, with no free use of water, and no soap, for neither of us had any left, had caused us to become very disreputable-looking beings. ”

“ I brought the shovel, removed the snow, and as I was doing so it came to my mind that if I were only able to bury Meade's body I could return to the den and pass the winter there.
But where could I bury it? How could I dig a grave? Everything, I knew, was frozen hard as steel; should I clear away the frozen nigger grass and moss, and light a fire on the earth in some quiet nook, thaw it thus, and dig a grave, as miners sink their holes in winter? ”

“ Here and there were patches of faded grass, flattened by the snow which had covered it for months. A few gnarled and twisted cedars and spruces still grew about there; but gaunt, black-butted, dead pine-trees, their tops whitened by the frost and wind, were everywhere—the dry bones of the forest. The frozen lake and the coast range close behind us, the mountains to right, left, and ahead, were snow-covered and dismal, and there was no sign of life, no trace of a living creature. ”

“ As I leant upon the rail and pondered upon what I and May had said earlier in the day, what our adventures together had been in the past, and what I had been foolish enough, as I at that moment considered, to imagine might be possible in the future, I was down-hearted and exceeding sad. My heart went out to May, I dwelt long and fondly on thoughts of her, but I could see no ray of hope, and could think of no reason why she should ever regard me as more than a friend ”

“ Sometimes salmon was to be had, and once I struck bear meat, and once stewed cariboo venison.
I saw May every day. We rarely went out together. There was really nothing she cared to see, and as all the roads and trails about this frontier town were simply impassable with mud, and slush, and knee-deep water-holes, there was no pleasure in a walk. Another reason was that women—ladies—being so rare there, her appearance on the street was the cause of some excitement: people would waylay us simply, I knew, to gaze with admiration on her sweet face. ”

“ She stood framed in the doorway against the light. I called to her "Go inside. Stay there till I return. I'll not be long; keep up your heart and your father's. All will now be well." Then an idea struck me, and I cried, "But tell me, what is your father's name and yours! Mine is Herbert Singleton, of Blumfield, Bedfordshire."
She answered loudly, but in tones I never will forget, "My father is William Bell of Hawkenhurst in Kent, and I am Mary Bell—but they always call me May!" ”

“ Now, as to this White Pass ever being made the highway to the Yukon, I must say a few words. The trail as it then existed was absolutely impracticable for horses—it was all that men could do to clamber up it, and we realised that with much traffic, even of human beings, it would quickly become impassable, and yet Meade and I felt confident that with comparatively little work and some engineering skill a road, and some day even a railroad, could be made across it. Most of the runs of water could be bridged easily, in the rough way which is the custom in the wilds. ”

“ I said, of course, I would stand by and aid her all I possibly could, with my life if need be. I would do all a man could to conduct her safely home to her mother, if he were taken; but I urged him again and again to try to pull himself together, and for all our sakes not to give up hope.
He took all I said kindly; he clasped my hand in his, and promised to do his best, but whispered as we heard May stirring, "It's hopeless, Bertie Singleton—quite hopeless; but I'll try to hide the truth from May as long as possible." ”

“ Indeed it was no wonder the good soul was perplexed, for we were dressed pretty much alike, if dressing could be called the furs and blankets in which we were enveloped.
May's skirt of serge, reaching to her knees, was so torn and ragged, very much as my frieze wrapper was, which I think reached nearer to my ankles than hers did to hers. I wore a cap with ears, and round my neck some fox-skins were muffled. She had a hood, a capote, a part of her outer garment: it was then drawn so closely round her face that nothing but her sweet eyes were visible. ”

“ Our creek was now alive with salmon; we could, with a long-handled shovel, scoop one out whenever we liked. They were so closely packed that they crowded each other out. In places many had been forced on to the land, where they lay rotting by the hundred: crows and ravens, jays, magpies, and hawks were numerous, feeding on dead fish, and several times we noticed bears dragging the salmon out and gorging themselves with them—not one bear only, often we saw several at once catching and eating them, or lying, surfeited with food, on sunny banks asleep. ”

“ Naturally we were impatient to reach Meade's last year's camp unobserved, and to discover if his find had been unmolested by wandering prospectors. We had seen so few human beings about that we hoped for the best; yet, now that we were so near the end of our long journey, we were in a fever of excitement.
Meade and I realised what a mistake we had made in not bringing a light canoe with us, for he knew it would be impossible to get our heavy boat past the rough water at the mouth of the creek where he had found the gold. ”

“ I went down to the bar and got a pan of dirt, and this is what I have washed out of it!" and he held the tin close to my face, and there was a handful of gold in it, dust and small nuggets—bright, shining, yellow nuggets, looking like pieces of shelled walnuts which had been gilded!
"Now, Bertie, what d'ye say?" he went on, as I stared at the gold, took some up and let it run through my fingers; "are you sorry you have come? Isn't all we have gone through a mere nothing? isn't it all forgotten?—and there's heaps and heaps of it!" ”

“ The creek rose, it washed away a couple of our sluice-boxes, and seemed as if it would swamp our drive. This roused me to active measures: I piled up rocks and logs in such a way that I secured it against that misfortune.
Meade and I frequently congratulated ourselves about our safety in that dug-out: we knew that nothing short of an earthquake could upset our dwelling. No tents could stand against that heavy wind and downpour. ”

“ The diggers, however, would have risen to a man to repel and punish any one found pilfering or gold-stealing. A species of lynch law had prevailed in that region for years, and the effect on the whole had made for good.
It was on the twelfth day of June that the steam whistle howled at daybreak, and our boat's bell clanged ceaselessly for an hour—how they do love noise over there!—and I brought May and her bundles on board.
The entire population of Dawson City came to the water's edge to see us off, and yell their good wishes to us. ”

“ It appeared that the good folk of Victoria must have told the people on the Yosemite about us, and they must have passed the story on to the officials of the C.P.R at Vancouver, for every one seemed to know where May and I had been, and what our experiences were, also the amount of gold we had brought out with us. Every one was attracted to us: we were famous, and had to answer no end of questions, and repeat again and again the story of our adventures. ”

“ Most days Patch and I took tramps up and down the creek, and I very soon became dexterous in their use: besides, I knew it was necessary for me to take plenty of exercise to knit myself together, to train for my contemplated expedition.
Now I turned my attention to the construction of a sled—a sledge. The one I had begun I had not seen for weeks,—it was buried under many a foot of snow. I searched, and at last dug it out; it was, I could see, unsuitable. I realised that I must make a sort of toboggan—something to lie flat upon the snow, that would not cut into it as sled-runners would. ”

“ I had said to him gently as we came out, "We must be very quiet, Patch; you must not bark; your poor master is very ill; we must let him sleep," and the way that dear old fellow looked at me was as if he quite understood what I had said. I believe he did, too, by his actions.
From the hot stuffy cavern, little more than a burrow, where I had been attending to my poor friend, to the clear air outside, the change was great and most refreshing. I stood beside the creek for some time breathing in the sweet pine-scented air, and thinking very deeply, very seriously. ”

“ Truly the mosquitos of the Yukon hold the record as tormentors.
Lake Marsh is twenty miles long. It then narrows, and for nearly thirty miles we followed the course of the river, which is the Lewes. The current is about three miles an hour, and we were blessed with a gentle breeze astern, so got on famously. We passed through miles and miles of cut sandbanks, which were completely honeycombed by a species of martin, which were then busy nesting. The air was alive with millions of these little birds, and we gloried in the knowledge that they were feeding exclusively on our deadly foes. ”

“ One morning I left him sleeping whilst I went out for food and fuel. When I returned, to my horror he was sitting upright.
I called out in amazement. He smiled sadly as he said, "Ah! it does not matter much, Bertie. I've not moved my bad leg though, just dragged it along—it's all right, as right as it'll ever be: but I must write to-day; after that we'll just hope for the best, that's all we can do."
"Ay," I answered, "that's all; yes, but we can pray, we can do that, and that's our only hope." ”

“ We each had plenty of money, or should have, if we succeeded in getting our gold away, and would then have the means to carry out the schemes we laid. What good we projected to our fellows! to all poor strugglers at home! What philanthropic associations we would help!
May's ideas of a happy, useful life were exactly the same as mine, which impressed me more and more with the desire, the hope, that we two might live that life together. ”

“ The snow was packing; there were bare patches on the hills and on the creek; the slush beneath the upper layer of snow was deeper and softer. I had the curiosity to go out on to the Klondyke, and I found it very much worse than when May and I were on it. In places the ice was burst up, and I realised that it would have been impossible for us to move along it if we had been unwise enough to start. We would surely have had to camp somewhere on the way, and live in misery, perhaps many miles from any help. We were very far better off than that. ”

“ It was just a den, and a very dismal one at that,—far worse than the meanest hopper's crib in Kent.
First we lit a big fire inside, and when the frost was driven out we set to with pick and shovel and very quickly enlarged it by about five feet, after which we strewed a thick layer of fresh pine brush over the floor, spread our bedding, and were at home!
"It'll do," said Meade; "we can exist here till we've got all the gold we want—that will not take long, you'll see. Then for England, home, and beauty, eh?" ”