Charlevoix county herald., 1907-05-25
! A Genius Of the Yukon !
By Emmett Campbell Hall s
By Emmett Campbell Hall



to do, an they had to come up with
the dust. We shore did take in the
nuggets.
1.-The way we worked was like this.
Every night we'd take as many rats
as we wanted to make blasts the next
day, an soak their tails in mixture
of sulphur, lard an black powder, to
the various diggin's with our rats in
a sack, make the men stand off so
they couldn't see what we'd done,
light the tip of TAIL an head the
rat into hole which had been bored
into the bank. With that sputterin'
behind him, he'd go as far as he could,
an by that time the fuse would have
burned up. an the old rat, bein' moth
in but chunk Of animated dynamite,
would blow up fine. Never did sec
such good blasts.
Everything was goin' lovely till
Dick got stuck on that young female
girl, already befo' mentioned, as the
lawyer said. / begged him to let it
alone till spring, anyhow, but he
man in camp was after her, an 1t
tickled Dick to see that she seemed to
prefer him TO any of the rest Of the
bunch. 1t takes a real smart chap
to be a plumb fool, an Dick was
smart, all right. But he couldn't see
that that little blue-eyed girl had it
doped out easy that man dom ali
the blastin' for camp at $50 per
blast was a sucker with gold scales,
an a whole lot more worth ropein'
than them what was doin' the payin.
I pleaded but it wasn't no use, an
in pretty near no time they had 1t
all fixed up, an Dick, wishin' to show
off, has the hitch pulled off in the big
bunk-house, SOS all the camp can
come.
Il didn't go-1 felt too blue. I
knowed the whole cinch was busted.
an | went mopin' off an set down un-
der the lee of a bank. l could see
two or three sleds drawin' up in front
of mine an Dicks shack, an knowed
they was haulin' that female girls
fiXin's over. l felt so discouraged l
didn't hardly care if they found our
| rats-which was all up in secret
loft we had fixed up. was a-settin'
there smokin mournful like, when all
of sudden l thought of that cat!
1t was the only cat in all that coun-
try, an belonged to that girl. l had
| begged Dick to let me kill it, KNOWN
the danger, but she liked the beast,
an Dick would as soon have thought
of shootin' an angel. An now l know
ed for certain that they had packed
it over to the shack-an' near thou
sand dynamite rats in the loft!
Il set there, hardly breathin', watch
in that shack for ID minutes. The
! people that had brought the girls
! stuff had gone, an there wasn't no.
| body near it, an there wasn't goin'
to be, if somebody meant me. Then,
all of sudden there was a kind of
! dull roar that knocked me fiat on
my back, an me half mile away
| from-no, not the shack, but the big
! hole in the ground where the shack
! had been. 1t was simple enough
that cat had caught rat, probably
! jumped on him and flung him against
the floor Just think of it-a thou
sand $50 blasts all gone up at once,
along with all the dust we had already
collected, an which had been hid in
/ the floor
Il heaved a sigh an looked about.
| There wasn't no use in me stayin'
round that camp now-an' a fine dog
| team with what looked like a fine
outfit strapped on the sled, was stand
! ing not far off, where the musher had
| left it to run to see what the bust
! up had been.
Il cracked the whip over them dogs,
an we was just hittin' the high
/ places, when l caught sight of some
/ thin sorter untanglin' itself 'longsde
Of the trail, an gents, try to picture
my feelin's when l recognized that
/ blamed cat-hardly even singed. No,
/ didn't kill it, l caught it and tied
note on it for Dick, which same just
said: Wish you both luck
NO. sir" the old Yukoner con-
cluded; there shore is goin' 10 be
trouble when a female girl gets mixed
! in!'
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