Fort Wrangel news., 1898-09-14
rns As.eRol rRAll
n,. ras,iaa.' e,psrisaes Coming Through.


 few weeks ago. and returned up the river last Monday, on the Mouo. He will % up to Dees Lake with four tons of provisions, where he will spend the winter. Mir Tautfans is friend of Marshal Grant. and came from the same place in Idaho. He eame from Idaho over what is commonly known as the Ashcroft trail Mr Tauttaus was seen by News man, and his talk with us will no doubt interest our readers.
 In speaking of the trip out to this country, and in answer to the questions as to the time of starting, arrival at the Stikeen, etc. MT Tautfaus said
 "I left Idaho Falls about the 18th of June, accompanied by my two daugh- ters, Josephine and Catherine, F.. F. Henry, Robert Lafayette and Gus Rip ley. We went to Ashcroft on the train, from our Idaho home. We bought 23 head of horses and outfltted in other respects at Ashcroft, and started for Hazelton, on Skeener river. Our outfit was one of the best on the trail, our horses in splendid condition, with am pie supply to carry us through without any shortage. We found the trail be tween Quesnell and Hazeltou had been used and travelled over in late years, but it was in il very bad and di- lapidated condition on account of con stant rain and with the multitude of stock which had passed over. However, we managed to get over this part of the trail without any loss of our stock, but with considerable difficulty. At Hazel ton we layed over for four days to rest and replenish our stock of supplies, for we had been travelling from the 22d of May to the 3d of July. Wemade more than average time, for we passed nu- merous parties who had left Ashcroft ahead of us. We were unable to get any information concerning the con- dition of the trail ahead of Us to Tele- graph Creek, as no one was coming back by that route. We purchased sup plies as we supposed to more than carry us through to Telegraph Creek. We left Hazleton on July 7th, and camped that same night at the Stikeen river crossing. We could make no satisfac- tory arrangements with Indians to take Us across, so we built raft, and when completed we made trial trip across, which is about 1000 yards. The Indians kept close watch on us to see what success we would have with our raft. The raft proved very successful, and seeing this the Indians came over to where we were and offered to take us over at our own price and at the same time they wanted to buy the raft so that it should not come into compe- tition with them in their business of ferrying people and their outfits across. We let them take us over at fair price and left the raft with them. That even ing we camped on stream about six teen miles from the rlyer we had just crossed The next day we passed through a very dense and heavily tim bered country, with no feed on the way for our stock That night we turned the horses into d swamp knee deep with water, to pick what little grass there was. 1 cannot at this time give you full account of the trip, but it now seems to me that we endured about all the hardships that humanity can en- dure before we got to Telegraph Creek" :"
 "How did you come to go that way ?'' the News man asked.
 "The Spokane people are trying to turn the Klondike travel through that town, and up to Ashcroft by rail and over the trail we went, and in order to do so, they are compelled to lie about and misrepresent the trail. The Spo- kane papers represent it as being good, when the truth is it is not fit for any human being to try to go over. It was so bad that we were much longer on the trail than we expected, and ran out of supplies and actually went hungry. A few days before we got to our desti- nation 1 went ahead and got something to eat and then hurried back. l met them one and half days from Tele graph Creek.
 "Yes, we lost stock. Thirteen out of the twenty-three we started with, and the ten we had left we had to use for packing purposes, and everybody had