The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-04-14
GRIM STORIES OF THE GOLD FIELD.
GOld-Seekers on the Verge of Mad
ncss-Profanity the safety Valve.
Warren Cheney in Ainslee's

| ness-Profanity the safety Valve.
| Warren Cheney in Ainslee's.
Here is a typical illustration, of the ex-
| IRENE hardships of the life in Alaska
| Middleton was a young Englishman
| slight and small. and accustomed to all
the refnements of civilized life He had
| enough money TO buy a modest outfit
but had never camped out or roughed il
| before this time. He and his partner
| went in by the Chicoot Pass in 1897 and
tramped the whole way. They had a
sledge and four Irish settlers with twelve
hundred pounds of freight The partner
being the stonger. bucked himself into
the harness and pulled as leader of the
team. Middleton's duty was to walk be-
nina the sledge and push. There are no
roads, properly speaking, in Alaska EN-
cept in winter the trails are sloughs of
icy mud worked soft by the feet of the
gold seekers. The slush is always over
The shoes and an ungarded step will
plunge the walker TO the waist. The Cana
dian government has done nothing to bet
ter the condition of the trails. This fact,
coupled with the eXorbitant fees charged
the miners by that government, have led
the prospectors, at more than one point
on the trails 10 set up boards with this
derisve motto:
millions for tribute. but not one cent
for roads"
The gold seeker himself carefully re-
Trains from doing anything more to the
trails than viii serve to help him out of
present difficulties and TO carry him on
his way.
The first important thing Middleton
learned was to swear. Everybody swears
in Alaska There is belief that nothing
of moment can be accomplished there
without profanity. 1t is the safety valve
that keeps men from madness when the
IF he b.Ar
ciating. Only Swedes do not acquire the
habit, and perhaps it would be better If
they did. Their natural slowness of speech
keeps them quiet under trouble, but the
feeling is there just the same The stress
of bitter hardship is on all alike, and the
effect is cumulative when it is not worked
off. A story to illustrate the virtue or
swearing concerns Swede who had
struggled through a long half day of
small disasters. His patience was mar
veous He was wet and chilled. He
righted his sledge after upsets In grim ST.
lence, and with courage worthy of bet
ter luck. But along in the afternoon.
where The trail skirted hill, some sud
den freak twitched his dogs off to one
side and sent the sedge and its load roll
ing down into the little valley beneath.
1t was nothing worse than had happened
before but somehow it snapped the last
cord of resistance. He stood for a moment,
his hands above his head and his fea-
lures working as if in a CONFUSION then
with yell he dashed after the team,
pulled an axe from the leashings, killed
the dogs one after another, and smashed
the sledge and load into little pieces. Sud-
denly reason returned. He sat down in
the snow beside his ruined outfit and cried
like a child.
To rejoin Middleton at the time of his
learning to swear. The whole life goes
on at such high pressure that everybody
Is on the verge of madness. 1t is the
strain of the thing that counts. Middle
ton had his turn with the rest. Once,
when slipping, he saved his footing by
hanging to the sledge. His partner feel
ing the drag promptly cursed him for
adding to the load When Middleton got
down and pushed harder to make up for
lost time, his partner sulked and his head
reeled with the added effort When one
of the dogs dropped on the snow to rest,
the sledge stopped and each man turned
furiously the other The words came
hot and fast. Middleton noticed all at
once that he was not talking, but simply
screaming, and that he could not help it.
Then things went away from him. When
he came to himself his partners arms
were around him, and his partners voice,
him:
There! there! Take brace, old man.
In minute youll be all right"
In ten minutes Middleton was all right.
and they were both laughing and plodding
as before. II is this sort of thing that
makes up the daily tragedy of the trails.