Chapter I: Preface

Among my first passions was that for exploration. The Unknown--that region of mysteries lying upon the outskirts of commonplace environment--drew me with a mighty attraction. My earliest recollections are of wanderings into the domains of the neighbors, and of excursions--not infrequently in direct contravention to parental warnings--over fences, stone-walls, and roofs, and into cobwebbed attics, fragrant hay-lofts, and swaying tree-tops. Of my favorite tree, a sugar maple, I remember that, so thoroughly did I come to know every one of its branches, I could climb up or down unhesitatingly with eyes shut. At that advanced stage of acquaintance, however, it followed naturally that the mysteriousness, and hence the subtle attractiveness, of my friend the maple was considerably lessened.

By degrees the boundary line of the unknown was pushed back into surrounding fields. Wonderful caves were hollowed in sandy banks. Small pools, to the imaginative eyes of the six-year-old, became lakes abounding with delightful adventures. The wintry alternations of freezing and thawing were processes to be observed with closest attention and never-failing interest. Nature displayed some new charm with every mood.

There came a day when I looked beyond the fields, when even the river, sluggish and muddy in summer, a broad, clear torrent in spring, was known from end to end. Then it was that the range of low mountains--to me sublime in loftiness--at the western horizon held my fascinated gaze. To journey thither on foot became ambition's end and aim. This feat, at first regarded as undoubtedly beyond the powers of man unaided by horse and carry-all (the thing had once been done in that manner on the occasion of a picnic), was at length proved possible.

What next? Like Alexander, I sought new worlds. Nothing less than real camping out could satisfy that hitherto unappeasable longing. This dream was realized in due season among the mountains of New Hampshire; but the craving, far from losing its keenness, was whetted. Of late it has been fed, but never satiated, by wider rovings on land and sea. Perhaps it is in the blood and can never be eliminated.

Believing that this restlessness, accompanied by the love of adventure and out-of-door life, is natural to every boy, I have had in mind particularly in the writing of this narrative those thousands of boys in our cities who are bound within a restricted, and it may be unromantic, sphere of activity. To them I have wished to give a glimpse of trail life, not with a view to increasing their restlessness,--for I have not veiled discomforts and discouragements in relating enjoyments,--but to enlarge their horizon,--to give them, in imagination at least, mountain air and appetites, journeys by lake and river, and an acquaintance with men and conditions as they now exist in the great Northwest.

The Dalton trail, last year but little known, may soon become a much travelled highway. With a United States garrison at Pyramid, and the village of Klukwan a bone of contention between the governments of this country and Canada, the region which it traverses is coming more and more into notice. I would only add that natural features, scenery, and people, have been described faithfully, however inadequately, and the story throughout is based upon real happenings. Should any of my young readers pass over the trail to-day in the footsteps of David and Roly, they would find, save for possible vandalism of Indians or whites, the cabins on the North Alsek and in the Kah Sha gorge just as they are pictured, and they could be sure of a welcome from Lucky, Long Peter, and Coffee Jack.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. A LETTER FROM ALASKA 1

II. BUYING AN OUTFIT 7

III. FROM SEATTLE TO PYRAMID HARBOR 18

IV. THE FIRST CAMP 28

V. THE GREAT NUGGET, AND HOW UNCLE WILL HEARD OF IT 38

VI. ROLY IS HURT 47

VII. CAMP AT THE CAVE 54

VIII. SLEDDING 60

IX. KLUKWAN AND THE FORDS 69

X. A PORCUPINE-HUNT AT PLEASANT CAMP 77

XI. THE MYSTERIOUS THIRTY-SIX 88

XII. THE SUMMIT OF CHILKAT PASS 101

XIII. DALTON'S POST 112

XIV. FROM THE STIK VILLAGE TO LAKE DASAR-DEE-ASH 120

XV. STAKING CLAIMS 127

XVI. A CONFLAGRATION 135

XVII. THROUGH THE ICE 142

XVIII. BUILDING THE CABIN 149

XIX. THE FIRST PROSPECT-HOLE 157

XX. ROLY GOES DUCK-HUNTING 166

XXI. LAST DAYS AT PENNOCK'S POST 175

XXII. A HARD JOURNEY 182

XXIII. THE LAKE AFFORDS TWO MEALS AND A PERILOUS CROSSING 192

XXIV. DAVID GETS HIS BEAR-SKIN 201

XXV. MORAN'S CAMP 210

XXVI. HOW THE GREAT NUGGET NEARLY COST THE BRADFORDS DEAR 216

XXVII. AN INDIAN CREMATION 223

XXVIII. THE PLAGUE OF MOSQUITOES 231

XXIX. LOST IN THE MOUNTAINS 238

XXX. WASHING OUT THE GOLD 248

XXXI. DAVID MAKES A BOAT-JOURNEY 256

XXXII. CHAMPLAIN'S LANDING 264

XXXIII. ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS 272

XXXIV. RAIDED BY A WOLF 279

XXXV. A LONG MARCH, WITH A SURPRISE AT THE END OF IT 289

XXXVI. HOW DAVID MET THE OFFENDER AND WAS PREVENTED FROM
SPEAKING HIS MIND 297

XXXVII. HOMEWARD BOUND 306

XXXVIII. A CARIBOU, AND HOW IT WAS KILLED 314

XXXIX. DANGERS OF THE SUMMER FORDS 321

XL. SUNDAY IN KLUKWAN 331

XLI. THE ROBBERS AT LAST 339

XLII. PYRAMID, SKAGWAY, AND DYEA.--CONCLUSION 348

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

SLEDDING UP THE CHILKAT VALLEY _Frontispiece_

PYRAMID HARBOR, PYRAMID MOUNTAIN IN THE DISTANCE 26

MAP OF THE DALTON TRAIL 28

A CURIOUS PHENOMENON BESIDE THE TRAIL 89

THE CAMP OF THE MYSTERIOUS THIRTY-SIX 93

"PRESENTLY SOME LITTLE YELLOW SPECKS WERE UNCOVERED" 131

CHILDREN OF THE WILDERNESS 192

RAFTING DOWN THE NORTH ALSEK 265

A HERD OF CATTLE.--YUKON DIVIDE IN THE DISTANCE 267

FORDING THE KLAHEENA 325

"SALMON BY THE THOUSAND" 349

GOLD-SEEKING

ON

THE DALTON TRAIL