The National tribune., 1902-04-24
THE CONQUEST. OF ALASKA.
The Building of the First Railroad from
the Coast into the Yukon Valley.
BY CY owARMAN.

i BY cY ,wARMAN
Immediately under The man with the
money, who lived iHtI,ondon, there was the
President in Chicago; then came the Chief
Engineer in Seattle, the Locating Engineer
in Skaguay, the contractor in the grading
camp, and Hugh Foy, the boss of the
builders. Yet. in spite of all this over
hanging qualification, Foy was a big
man. To be sure, none of these men had
happened to get their positions by mere
chance. They were men of character and
fortitude, capable of great sacrifice.
| Mr.. Close in London knew that his part
ner, Mr.. Graves. in Chicago, would be a
good man at'the head of so cold and hope
less an enterprise as a klOndike railway,
and Mr.. Graves knew that Erastus Corn
ing Hawkins who had put through some
| of the biggest engineering schemes in the
! West, was the man to build the road. The
| latter selected, as Locating Engineer, John
/ HiSlop, the hero, one of the few survivors
of that wild and daring expedition that
undertook, some 90 years ago, to survey
route for railroad whose trains were
to traverse the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado, where, save for the song of the
cataract, there is only shade, and silence,
and perpetual starlight Heney, wiry,
compact plucky Canadian contractor, made
oral agreement with the Chief Engineer,
and, with Hugh Foy as his superintendent
of construction, began to grade what they
| called the White Pass and Yukon Rail
way. Beginning where the bonewashing
| Skaguay tells her troubles to the tide
| waters at the elbow of that beautiful arm
of the Pacific Ocean called Lynn Canal,
they graded out through the scattered set
| tlement where a city stands today, cut
| through a dense forest of spruce, and be-
gan to climb the hill.
DIFFICULTIES OF CONSTRUCTION.
When the news of ground breaking had
gone out to Seattle and Chicago, and
thence to London conservative capitalists,
who had suspected Close Brothers and
Company, and all their associates in this
wild scheme, of temporary insanity, con-
Guided that the sore affliction had come
to stay. But the dauntless builders on the
busy field, where the grading camp was in
action, kept grubbing and grading, climb
ing and stalking, blasting and building, I'M
discouraged and undismayed. Under the
caves of dripping glacier, Hawkins, His
Top and Heney crept,. and as they meas
ured off the miles and fixed the grade by
blue chalk marks where stakes could not
be driven, Foy followed with his army
of blasters and builders. When the path
finders came to deep side canyon, they
posite side, found their bearings, and be-
gan again. At one place the main wall was
so steep that the engineer was compelled
to climb to the top, let a man down By
rope so that he could mark the face of
the cliff for the blasters, and then haul
him up again.
1t was Springtime4 when they began,
and through the long days Of that short
Summer, the engineers explored, and
manned and located and close no
hind them, they could hear the steady roar
Of FOy's fireworks, as the skilled blasters
burst big powders or shattered the Shout
ders of great crags that blocked the trail
Of the iron horse Ever and anon, when
the climbers and builders peered down
into the ragged canyon, they saw long
line of pack animals. bibeds and quadru
peds-some hoofed and some horned, some
bleeding, some Understanding and stag
gering, fainting and, falling, the fttest
fighting for the trail and gaining the sum-
nit, where the clear green waters of the
mighty Yukon would carry them down to
DawsOn-the mecca of all these sold-mad
men. AS often as the road makers glanced
at the pack trains, they saw hundreds of
thousands of dollars worth of traffic going
past or waiting transportation at Ska
quay, and each strained every nerve to
complete the work while the sun shone.
By Midsummer they began to appre-
ciate the fact that this was to be a hard
job. When the flowers faded on the
southern slopes, they were not more than
half way up the hill. Each day the sun
swung lower across the canals, all the
tomOrrows were shorter than the yeSter-
days, and there was not man among them
with shade of sentiment, or a sense of
the beautiful but sighed when the flowers
died. Yes, they had learned to love this
maiden, Summer, that had tripped up
from the South, smiled on them, sung for
season, sighed, smiled once more, and
then danced down the Lynn Canal again.
III come back, she seemed to say,
peeping over the shoulder of glacier that
stood at the stage entrance, I'm come
back, but, ere | come, there'll be strong
scenes and sounds on this rude stage so
new to you. First you will have a short
season of melodrama by a melancholy chap
called Autumn, glOriously CARRIED in green
and gold, with splashes and dashes of Law
ender and lace, but sad, sweetly sad, and
signing always, for life is such a little
while
With sadder smile she kissed her rosy
fingers and was gone-gone with her gOr-
geous garments, her ferns and flowers, her
low, soft signs, and sunny skies, and there
was not man that was man but missed
her when she was gone.
The Autumn scene, though somber and
sad, was far from depressing, but they
all felt the change. John Hislop seemed
to feel it more than all the rest; for, be-
sides being deeply religious, he was deeply
i'll love. His nearest and dearest friend,
Heney-happy, hilarious Heney-knew,
and he swore softly whenever steamer
landed without message from Minneap-
Olis-the long-looked-for letter that would
make HislOp better or worse. 1t came at
length, and Hislop was happy. With his
horse, his dog, and sandwich-but never
gun-he would make long excursions
down toward Lake Linderman, to Bennett,
or over Atlin way. When the country be-
came too rough for the horse, he would be
left picketed near a stream with faith
full dog to look after him while the path
finder climbed up among the eagles.
A STAMPEDE FOR THE GOLD FIELDS.
In the meantime, Foy kept pounding
away. Occasionally soiled pedestrian
would slide down the slope, tell wild tale
of rich strikes, and II hundred men would
quit work and head Cor the highlands. Foy
would storm and swear and coax by turns,
but to no purpose for they were like so
many steers, and as. easily stampeded.
When the Atlin boom struck the camp
Foy lost 800 men in as many minutes.
Scores of graders dropped their tools and