The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-12-24

'I saw a fellow walk into a bar room | one night and order drinks for the crowd | and threw out check for 5000 to pay | for them. The bartender started to give him the change, but the fellow remarked,
 never mind about the change, we will
 drink it out some other time" That fel-
 low blew in $36,OO0 in six weeks. He was doing good business, had plenty of money and was out for time and he had 1t.
 Last summer I worked on a claim fourteen miles from Dawson. They have splendid roads in that section now and
 we used, to walk into the city after sup
 per, stay all night, do our shopping next day and then walk back in the after
 noon. Sometimes we would pull our sleds
 ourselves and you will probably be aston
 ished to know that man can haul 300 to $50 pounds with comparative ease. There is very little rain in that country and when a road Is once built does not wash up into gullies like our roads do
 here. From the Youkon falls to Dawson is a distance of 450 miles. The whole dis tance can now be made in a closed stage, with stove in it, and there is not near the suffering and inconvenience in travel that there once was. There are many bicycles in that country and when the river is frozen over the smooth ice
 make sa splendid bicycle track and a cyclist can get on a wheel and go with the speed of lightning almost. But they have to be careful not to run into hole in the ice. This danger only occurs, how
 ever. when thaw is on. I remember to
 have fallen in a hole one day when the thermometer was 25 below zero. was pulled out and if I could have run and taken exercise l would have been all
 right, but in a minute after l came out
 and the air had struck me my heavy clothing was as stiff as raw hide and l could not move hand or foot. My com
 panions picked me up bodily and threw
 me in a wagon nearby and drove like mad for the nearest roadhouse, a half
 mile away. l was half dead when they got there, but tkey stripped be and
 rolled me iD the snow and scon got up
 circulation again.
 Once I nearly froze to death. A
 drowsy feeling came over me and 1 sank
 to the ground. l thought to myself, shall I lie down here and fall into the
 peaceful. quiet, eternal sleep and pass
 away without suffering. or shall l make an effort to live I decided to try to live, although 1 was very drowsy, and 1 got
 up and commenced to run as fast as l could. It was six miles to the nearest road house and I ran every step of the
 way, but in spite of that and with all of
 the beating of my hands over my shoul- T
 arrived at the road house my face was frozen. one of my arms was frozen up to the elbow and my clothing was frozen to my back. l burst in the door and
 yelled that I was freezing and those on
 the inside applied snow to my body in
 vigorous manner and was soon all right
 again.
 Tt Is the custom up there when you see a mans face freezing to tell him
 a ha day I was walking along and saw fel-
 low sitting down with his back to a tree.
 1 approached him and told him he was
 freezing. He said he knew better. l
 knew that I had to use vigorous meth-
 ods to save that fellow so l walked up
 to him and boxed him on both sides of the head just as hard as I could. He got
 mad and arose to his feet and showed
 fight. l had to knock him down two
 or three times and finally he said, l
 cant defend myself, don't kill me- l
 picked up his wallet of clothe sand wal
 lored him over the head and ordered him
 to get move on himself toward the
 nearest road house. This he did. but the fellow was so benummed that he would
 try to lie down and I had to kick and cuff him all the time to keep him from
 giving up. Finally l got him to the road
 house and his clothing had frozen to his
 back and in a few more minutes he would have died. When he got all right again
 he was the most grateful fellow that you ever saw, but he was very sore and
 bruised where l had kicked and struck him. It makes a bad sore to hit man on the part that Is frozen, but if l had
 been gentle and easy with him never would have got him to a road house, where his life was saved.
 There is q railroad ninety miles long up there now and 1t costs just $2O to ride from one end to the other of 1t. The cost by steamer down the Yukon for the same distance is $40. 1 mean by sam6 distance to reach the two points ot terminus of the railroad, for of course the river Is winding and the boat has to go a great many more miles than the railroad does. There IS coal every WI ere up there and it is being mined in few miles of Dawson. You can get coal there now at $50 a ton. The Yukon Is as large river as the Mississippi, and riGG down 1t in the summer time from Dawson City 10 the mouth is one of the most picturesque sights that ever saw. You would not think it, but the whole face of the earth on each side of the river, clear down to the wa ter's edge. is covered with roses. Along the edge of the glaciers l have seen violets grow many time. They are a very pale blue and die as soon as the sun comes out warm.
 There are about 5000 Indians and Es- quimaux on the coast above Nome. They are very dirty and unattractive and as disease is getting among them. brought there by the whites, and as they do not know how to doctor them selves they are dying out very rapidly. The men make the women do all the drudgery. while the'' do the hunting and fishing. I have frequently been among the Indians on trading expeditions. We buy furs and caribou hams from them. A caribou ham is worth about $5. I tried to trade d pound can of powder to buck one day for a caribou ham, and he got mad and would not trade. I got mad and made him a present of the 1 pound of powder He immediately got in good humor and was tickled to death 1 at the present. and in return made me | present of five caribou hams The | caribou is small kind of deer or elk | that is plentiful in that region and the | ham of one of them is about the best | meat that you ever ate.
 l went about l50 miles into the arctic ] circle The sun was just little above | the horizon and was visible all the time. | as they have six months of daylight and | six months of night up there. The au- | TOTO borealis as seen in that region is something beautiful to behold
 "The distance from Seattle to Nome is in the neighborhood of 2,600 miles. Beh-