The San Francisco call., 1898-03-18

4 t with stoves, built by the Miners Asso- citation and designed as stopping places for wayfarers.
 Here all have equal privilege and it Is the sight of a lifetime to see men, each with his sleigh and outfit and dogs, thirty of them gathered in one of these cabins to prepare their suppers and cook dog feed on one little tin stove and a campfire outside and succeeding with it all with not an impatient word spoken during the ordeal. Men have to be patient and tolerant on the trial and they are so.
 There were two of these cabins be- tween Dawson and Forty Mile on the boundary line, one in an old house, once occupied by Ogilvie and his party of surveyors when running the line, an- other and the best on the river at Mission Creek, and still another eight
 miles from Circle. Houses of refuge in extra severe weather also were the In dian camps and the occasional cabin of the woodchoppers, but the traveller often passes them by and camps in the open when he does not come upon them at camping time.
 The flats are the same terrible flats summer or winter For miles above and below Camp Ray the trail led over jagged stacks of ice that kept the sleds constantly turning upside down and made progress, even with six dogs, exceedingly slow. And yet it was here we met many of this unhappy army of the unprovisioned leaning forward in the traces, wreathed in and their faces literally obscured b'' frost, hauling their own sleds. Above and below the jam of jams-for there were more than one-the trail ran for miles over level ice, honeycombed with holes, often so close together as to barely admit the width of the sleds between them and the dark and swift current of the river flowing at the very edge of the trail. Once our heavily loaded sled went par tially through, and again we were com pelled to go into camp. although 1t was scarcely afternoon, because Patton stepped in some snow just off the trail. His hold on the "gee" pole saved him, | but he was wet to the middle and de-
 clared he had mot touched bottom. 1 The rotten ice is accounted for by warm springs, SW1ft currents ana Sid- ciers.
 I returned to Dawson with Harry l Davis. the Alaska Commercial Com
 pany's agent at Fort Yukon, the man
 who stood the brunt during the trying l times when the unprOVisioned were be- sieging his quarters. We were Just | three days in making Circle, remained i there two days, ran to Forty Mile in
 nine days, rested there one day, and in | two days more reached Dawson. We
 overlook James Dodson, known on the river here as Windy JiTn," bringing 1 mail up from Manook (Rampart City) | and the mouth of the Tanana, 300 miles 1 below Fort Yukon. He brought up l ffty-three pounds of mail and $16,000 l from the stranded people and the trad l CTS down there to be forwarded out He
 was to be paid a fixed sum <per letter l for carrying the mail up and bringing | back what mail was here for the sub 1 scribers, some of them agreeing to pay
 as much as $20 per letter, and the whole | guaranteeing him S2,000 for the trip.
 He left Rampant City on December 8
 and arrived here on January l8. He
 reports the steamers Seattle No. l, the
 May West and Hattie B., all enter
 prises of last fall, with their passengers
 winterng in the mouth of the Noveka-
 kat River ninety-five below Rampant | City or Manook.
 The Governor Stoneman, a small l steamer with a barge, is ninety five
 miles still further down, with forty
 people, He says there are at least 500 people at Rampant City and 200 camped with their boats the settlement there
 being known as Woodworth, after Captain Wood of the Seattle No. 1 and l Captain Worth of the May West. Al | Mayo has established a store at Ma nook, and the developments on the | creek indicate substantial camp Ex-Governor McGraw and General Carr of Seattle are prospecting there. | The steamer May West and those in 1 terested in her are in all sorts of trou- ble She has a number of passengers whom Captain Worth, out of his con- ] fdence in his ability to reach here last l fall, contracted to feed until they were l landed at Dawson. The provisions are running short, and the passengers are getting fretful. James Adams, one of l the passengers who had advanced some money to Captain Worth, and has mortgage on the boat, and the carpen- ters and crew have not been paid. They threaten to tie her up on reach ing Circle City and have her sold to re- cover their money. The total indebted ness is about $5000. She is loaded with bonded goods, and the question is raised as to whether she may be tied up under these circumstances.
 These people on the lower river have been absolutely cut off from commit nication with the outside world, and the letters Dodson brings will, when they get out, be the first direct word their friends have received from them since leaving home last summer. their whereabouts even being unknown.
 Dodson expected to carry back with him a quantity of mail addressed to them here, but will probably hay to return without any as no Canadian mail has arrived since last summer, and hope of it's arriving before the opening of the river is now almost given up.
 The rumor that was current last Sep