Gilpin observer., 1899-01-05
MEN OF THE KLONDIKE
THEY SELL THEIR WIVES FOR
GOLD.
The Better Halves Can Be Purchased or
Traded Like Ordinary Cattle-Some
startling News from the Land of
tho Yellow Metal.

Startling reports regarding the ex-
tent of the wife-selling traffic of the
Klondike country is the sensation of
Vancouver. That a man can get a
buxom, dark-eyed wife for fifty blank
cts would seem a sort of fairy story
were not the facts so serious Robert
Stead Dun, a graduate of Harvard,
and formerly editor of the Harvard
Monthly, has just returned to civiliza
ton after a ifteen-hundred-m trip
by the Edmonton overland trail to the
klondike. 1t was here at Fort Gra-
ham that Mr.. Dun discovered the po-
lygamous traffcking in young women.
He found that nearly all the clerks
and employees had no difficulty in buy
ing wives. And they bought them.
Sparkling Eyes, a noted Indian belle
and the daughter of prominent chief,
was considered the prize of the North
west. From far and near came offers
for her hand. Ponies, guns, trinkets,
brass watches, yards of tin foil and
bales of copper wire were offered for
quit claim deed to the maiden's heart.
But the grim old warrior was not to
be caught by any ordinary purchaser.
He wanted something besides personal
property. He was ambitious for fam
lily alliance with some man of social
standing and influence in the commu-
nifty. Thus it was that when Factor
Fox, big medicine man, superin-
tendent of white faced employees, made
overtures, with due ceremony and elab-
crate array of technicalities, involving
the highest etiquette of the land, the
copper-colored chieftain Immediately
became an eager party to the negotia-
tions. Then Factor Fox took the girl
to his cabin, decked her out in beads
and gorgeous trappings, with yellow
+ handserchiefs for her head, purple
scarfs for her neck, resplendent brass
rings for her ears and fingers and a
peck of fiashy big-headed pins for
other features of her adornment She
modestly appreciated her exalted posi-
tion in the new life, and although she
did not seek to ostentatiously queen it
over the employees of the factory, yet
she had an air of authority and self
possession that won her the respect of
the boys of the settlement The old
Indian chief must have picked up some
new points from the whites, for when
he found that his daughter was jewel
of wife, about the finest thing on ice
IN the West, he demanded a codicil to
be inserted in the deed He struck for
more blankets. If Factor Fox had no
blankets to spare the chief would take
logs, brass watches or money but he
preferred guns If he could get them
Mr.. Fox refused to be blackmailed 1t
should be explained that the copper
colored father had threatened to give
low whistle from the parapet of the
fort that the girl would understand
and she would run away. But the fac
tor had treated her too well and she
knew a good thing when she had 1t.
She refused to leave home: she said
she liked the white mans tents and
mis- children, and for the first time dur
ing her painted career she had found
domestic happiness. The old chief was
furious and made wild threats of ven
geance. But the girl was true to her
last love. When she looked into the
big warehouses and saw great boxes
of brass watches and barrels of cop
per beads. crates OF hardtack and best
of all. several barrels of forty-rod
whisky, she remarked to her Oldest
stepson: white daddy, heap good"
The boy gave an Indian grunt, ac-
quired only after long practice, and
said his father was the best man he
had ever known. The wife then sent a
clerk to warn her fat IN keop away
from the fort until he could behave
himself.