Chapter I: Front Matter

Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
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THE TRAIL OF THE GOLDSEEKERS

THE TRAIL OF THE GOLDSEEKERS

A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse

by

HAMLIN GARLAND

Author of
Rose of Dutcher's Coolly
Main Travelled Roads
Prairie Folks
Boy Life on the Prairie, etc.

New York The MacMillan Company London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd. 1906

Copyright, 1899, by Hamlin Garland.

Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1899. Reprinted January, 1906.

Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Coming of the Ships 3

II. Outfitting 11

III. On the Stage Road 21

IV. In Camp at Quesnelle 33

V. The Blue Rat 37

VI. The Beginning of the Long Trail 45

VII. The Blackwater Divide 53

VIII. We swim the Nechaco 63

IX. First Crossing of the Bulkley 73

X. Down the Bulkley Valley 81

XI. Hazleton. Midway on the Trail 97

XII. Crossing the Big Divide 107

XIII. The Silent Forests 119

XIV. The Great Stikeen Divide 131

XV. In the Cold Green Mountains 139

XVI. The Passing of the Beans 151

XVII. The Wolves and the Vultures Assemble 163

XVIII. At Last the Stikeen 175

XIX. The Goldseekers' Camp at Glenora 185

XX. Great News at Wrangell 195

XXI. The Rush to Atlin Lake 207

XXII. Atlin Lake and the Gold Fields 217

XXIII. The End of the Trail 231

XXIV. Homeward Bound 241

XXV. Ladrone travels in State 251

XXVI. The Goldseekers reach the Golden River 259

POEMS

Anticipation 1

Where the Desert flames with Furnace Heat 2

The Cow-boy 9

From Plain to Peak 19

Momentous Hour 31

A Wish 32

The Gift of Water 35

Mounting 35

The Eagle Trail 36

Moon on the Plain 43

The Whooping Crane 51

The Loon 51

Yet still we rode 61

The Gaunt Gray Wolf 79

Abandoned on the Trail 80

Do you fear the Wind? 95

Siwash Graves 105

Line up, Brave Boys 106

A Child of the Sun 117

In the Grass 118

The Faithful Broncos 129

The Whistling Marmot 130

The Clouds 137

The Great Stikeen Divide 138

The Ute Lover 147

Devil's Club 150

In the Cold Green Mountains 150

The Long Trail 159

The Greeting of the Roses 161

The Vulture 172

Campfires 173

The Footstep in the Desert 182

So this is the End of the Trail to him 190

The Toil of the Trail 193

The Goldseekers 205

The Coast Range of Alaska 215

The Freeman of the Hills 229

The Voice of the Maple Tree 230

A Girl on the Trail 239

O the Fierce Delight 249

The Lure of the Desert 258

This out of All will remain 262

Here the Trail ends 263

ANTICIPATION

I will wash my brain in the splendid breeze,
I will lay my cheek to the northern sun,
I will drink the breath of the mossy trees,
And the clouds shall meet me one by one.
I will fling the scholar's pen aside,
And grasp once more the bronco's rein,
And I will ride and ride and ride,
Till the rain is snow, and the seed is grain.

The way is long and cold and lone--
But I go.
It leads where pines forever moan
Their weight of snow,
Yet I go.
There are voices in the wind that call,
There are hands that beckon to the plain;
I must journey where the trees grow tall,
And the lonely heron clamors in the rain.

Where the desert flames with furnace heat,
I have trod.
Where the horned toad's tiny feet
In a land
Of burning sand
Leave a mark,
I have ridden in the noon and in the dark.
Now I go to see the snows,
Where the mossy mountains rise
Wild and bleak--and the rose
And pink of morning fill the skies
With a color that is singing,
And the lights
Of polar nights
Utter cries
As they sweep from star to star,
Swinging, ringing,
Where the sunless middays are.

THE TRAIL OF THE GOLDSEEKERS