The San Francisco call., 1896-03-17
Deserted by Indian Mail Car.
riers With Their Larder
Almost Empty.
MINERS FLoCKING NoRTHWARD
Steamers and Sailing Craft for the
Yukon Are Crowded With
Fortune.HunterS.

SEATTLE, VASE, March 16.-Alaska
advices received to-day by the steamer
Willapa report that L. S. Hodge and Will
liam McNeeleY, two white men who left
Juneau last December in company with
Jimmie Jackson, an Indian, and his as
sistants, who carry the Alaska Commercial
Company's mail from Juneau to Forty
Mile on the Yukon, have undoubtedly
persisted. Hodge was formerly employed
on the Juneau News, his companion, Nc
Neeley, being Silver Queen miner.
They were urged not to make the trip,
especially with the Indians, who are re-
markably fast travellers. The party had
provisions for forty days, and Hodge had
800 pounds of newspapers and magazines
he was taking in to sell.
Jackson and his two halfbreed assistants
were met about a month ago by the
Cooper party at the foot of Lake LIE Barge
Thev had deserted their white com mpanions
and were themselves in desperate circum-
stances. Their faces were badly frozen.
When overtaken by the Cooper party
Jackson and his fellow travellers had killed
and eaten all their dogs, beginning on the
remaining quarter of the last hound, and
of -four to the man.
Hodge and McNeeley nine days prior to
this had been left behind at Lake Leslin
with only a half-sack of -four and some
beans. Their only possible chance of res
cue was at the hands of unfriendly Stick
Indians who may have happened along.
A party of Yukon miners, among them
L. Golden, arrived at Juneau on March II,
having made the trip from Cicle City to
Juneau in the unusual time of thirty-eight
days, including five days stop at Har-
pers. Golden congratulated his compan-
ions upon the very favorable condition of
the weather this season, the thermometer
registering only so degrees below zero.
George Moore, formerly of Seattle, who
came down on the Willapa to-day, says
Iaborers should give Alaska the go-by, but
that it is good country for experienced
miners, provided they have some money
after reaching the gold fields. In Juneau
basin, Moore says, the snow is from fifty to
seventy-tive feet deep, and mines cannot be
got into operation before May or June. He
believes it foolhardy for miners to go to
Alaska now, for the reason that they can
not cross the summit before MAY.
The Pacific Coast Steamship Company s
steamer Mexico sailed from this port to-
day with about 200 passengers, including a
party of thirty-three from Michigan and
Pennsylvania towns. During the next ten
days the schooners Ella Johnson, Helena
Winowah, Lizzie B. Prescott, Eutopia,
Rainier and L. J. Perry, and the Lakme
and steamer Willapa, with passenger lists
of from twenty TO fifty each. will SAID from
Seattle to Alaska. The Mexico carried a
big cannery plant, to be established in
Alaska on the American side, near Buceda
Quadra village, about twenty miles from
Mary Island. On her trip down she
brought eighty boxes of fresh halibut,
taken by a fishing fleet which wintered in
Alaska.
Among the Alaskan vessels now in this
port is the steam schooner Excelsior,
which came in yesterday, having party
of San Francisco and Oakland business
and professional men, who will seek wealth
in the gold fields of the north. They are
interested with an Eastern syndicate,
headed by Edward Guyebault. Among
the San Francisco and Oakland men are
DR.. c. H. Walker. r. K. Dunn, Alfred
Dutton and DR.. Rodgers. The Excelsior
will probably sail tomorrow.