Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1911-11-01

ing, as yet untried, but bound to come,
he saw would be makeshift What
should be done was to hydraulic the
valley sides and benches, and then, on
the creek bottom, to use gold-dredges.
There was the very chance for another
big killing. He had wondered just
what was precisely the reason for the
Guggenhammers and the big English
concerns sending in their high-salaried
experts. That was their scheme. That
was why they had approached him for
the sale of worked-out claims and tail
ings. They were content to let the
small mine-owners gopher out what
they could, for there would be mil
lions in the leavings
And, gazing down on the smoky in
ferno Of crude effort, Daylight outlined
the new game he would play, a game
in which the Guggenhammers and the
rest would have to reckon with him.
But along with the delight in the new
conception came WEAKNESS. He was
tired of the long Arctic years, and he
was curious about the Outside-the
great world Of which he had heard
other men talk and of which he was
as ignorant as a child. There were
games out there to play. It was a
larger table, and there was no reason
why he with his millions should not
sit in and take a hand. So it was,
that afternoon on Skookum Hill, that
he resolved to play this last best Klon-
dixie hand and pull for the Outside. 1t
took time, however. He put trusted
agents to work on the heels of great
experts, and on the creeks where they
began to buy he likewise bought.
Wherever they tried to corner
worked-out creek, they found him
standing in the way, owning blocks Of
claims or artfully scattered claims
that put all their plans to .naught.
ne remember That last n1gnJ ne nau
seen her. He had thought nothing OF
it at the time; but, looking back, he
was haunted by every little thing that
had happened. In the light of the
tragic event, he could understand
everything quietness, that calm
gertrude as if all vexing questions OF
living had been smoothed out and
were gone, and that certain ethereal
sweetness about all that she had said
and done that had been almost mater
nal. He remembered the way she had
looked at him, how she had laughed
when he narrated Mickey Dolan's mis-
take in stalking the fraction on Shook
UNI Gulch. Her laughter had been
lightly joyous, while at the same time
it had lacked it's old-time robustness.
Not that she had been grave or sub
dued. On the contrary, she had been
SO patiently content, so filled with
peace. She had fooled him, fool that
he was. He had even thought that
night that her feeling for him had
passed, and he had taken delight in
the thought, and caught visions of the
satisfying future friendship that would
be theirs with this perturbing love
out Of the way.
And then, when he stood at the
door, cap in hand, and said good night.
1t had struck him at the time as
funny and embarrassing thing, her
bending over his hand and kissing it.
He had felt like fool, but he shivered
now when he looked back on it and
felt again the touch of her lips on his
hand. She was saying good-by, an
eternal good-by, and he had never
guessed. At that very moment, and
for all the moments of the evening,
coolly and deliberately, as he well
knew her way, she had been resolved
to die. If he had only known it! I'm
touched by the contagious malady
himself, nevertheless he would have
married her if he had had the slight
est inkling Of what she contemplated.
And yet he knew, furthermore, that
hers was a certain stiff kneed pride
that would not have permitted her to
accept marriage as an act of philan-
thropy. There had really been no saw
ing her, after all The love-disease
had fastened upon her, and she had
been doomed from the first to perish
of it.
Six thousand spent the winte@ OF
1897 in Dawson, work on the creeks
went on apace, while beyond the pass
es it was reported that one hundred
thousand more were waiting for the
spring. Late one brief afternoon, Day
light, on the benches between French
Hill and ShOokum Hill, caught a wild
er vision Of things. Beneath him lay
the richest part of Eldorado Creek
while up and down Bonanza he could
see for miles. 1t was a scene Of
vast devastation. The hills, to their
tops, had been shorn of trees, and
their naked sides showed signs of gor
ing and perforating that even the
mantle of snow could not hide. Be-
meath him, in every direction, were
the cabins of men. But not many
men were visible. A blanket of smoke
filed the valleys and turned the gray
day to melancholy twilight. Smoke
arose from a thousand holes in the
snow, where, deep down on bedrock,
in the frozen muck and gravel, men
crept and scratched and dug, and ever