Middletown transcript., 1897-11-27

/ UOuys
Then the brothers decided t, make
| another attempt to get to Alaska. Theil
plan was build boat at Grand to juno
tion, go down Grand river, and 60
through Green river canyon to the coast
of Lower California. No man had
ever made that trip alive, but the
Lrothers meant TO try it. They packed
their food and supplies as far as Grand
Junction and went up into the hills to
Whipsaw timber for that boat. There
came along man Wno wanted Il ferry
boat built.
lie had lots of money, SO the brothers
put eff the trip until they had some
what depleted his pocketbaok. For
three Years there were good times in
! Colon ado. Cumfnrtis killer of ell
ierprlst; high hopes faint on warm
hearthsl one, and SO the trip 10 Alaska
| had TO wait while the brothers made
money. Bolh Of them revisited Nova
Sco' ia and renewed the VOWS tp the
girls Of their hearts, but each waited
! fur just little more money, which
would make the future easy.
II didn't come. Before they could
well turn around, Rorbert, broke,
was working in the Aspen mines; s;HeDry,
moneyless, was working along the Cali
fornia coast as a roustabout, 'longshore-
man and anything that promised liv-
ing. At last there came the long-wait-
ed-fur chance to 90 into Alaska and in
1898 Henderson msdt his lirst trip
over Chilkoot pass.
NJ went in first in 1893" said Hen
derson yesterday. but l didn't pene-
trate very far at the first off. Joe La
due had store up there, and | worked
around that for while, Then there
was boating. OF course, we all knew
there was gold in there, but nobody
thought there was as much as after
ward turned out. l did good deal of
prospecting in spare times and turned
up some pretty good things. Then La
due built little stern-wheel steamer
to carry supplies and truck from Forty
Mile TO Sixty Mile. He mademe the skip.
per of her and was the first man who
ever made the trip without an Indian
pilot. She never touched once and L
beat the pilots time two days"
'How do you do this prospecting you
talk about?"
"Why, you have gold pan. It's
something like wash bowl, only fat
ter. You take couple OF shovelfuls
Of what you think is pay dirt and put
it in the pan. Then you dip the whole
outfit under water and you want to do
it gently. When you wipe some of it
off. Then little by little you throw
water in and mix it around until you
have stopped most of the dirt over the
edge, and the stones aud gravel and
stuff are at the bottom. When you
come 10 the black saDd you want to be
careful because the gold is just und er-
meath. When you have got that you are
through with the painful. The whole
thing takes about three minutes.
"The other wayis is with rocker. That
is an arrangement by which the muddy
water and stuff is filtered through
blankets. The stuff left on top of the
blankets you put in the mud box and
when the days work is done you wash
that stuff out 10 pan until it has got
rid of most of the dirt. Then you
pour in quicksilver and mix it all
around. The quicksilver and the gold
form sort of dough, and you can
wash out the rest Of the dirt. Then
you take this mixture of gold and
quicksilverJ anl put it in a pan over
the fire. The heat makes the quick
silver pass away as smoke, and
there's your gold. That's all there is
to it,"
Henderson was the first man who
ever crossed the Chilkoot pass in the
middle of winter. aud he did it for the
sake of the girl he left behind in Nova
Scotia-the breadth of the country
away. eHere is how he tells il:
''You see, things had been pretty
bad up in the Yukon last summer. OF
course, l was running the boat, and all
that, but wasn't making much, and
the placer mines were not panuing out
as we'll as expected.
"I wandered around feeling mean
and wishing / could see the little girl.
when I runs into Johnny Reed and
Hank Wrigh. Reed, he's round ed up
all the mail at dollar letter, and he
says he's going TO take it through.
Wright allows he'll 60 along, and what
with me W anting to see the girl so
badly, and the way they talked, [ said
I'd go along, too.
1.-THE first two days was pretty tough,
aud our dogs got their feet frost bitten.
We had moocasins made TO tit 'em all,
but the plaguey beasts ohewed them off
and ate 'em. We got to pslly river at
last, and we had bad weather and were
tired.
Nov Reed had promised all those
miners in Forty Nils that we would
lay up two months at Pelly river. You
see we had lot of mail and money
with us, and if we go. lost why the
mail went, to,They worried some about
US, but they worried lot more about
those letters. When we got into Pelly
river We expected to keep to tiiatagree-
meut, but when we'd been there two
days Reed, he comes to ns add says: Il
guess We better get out of here boys.
bdcon's S. a pound and it'll take all
we've got, and mail bags, too, to keep
US here month";