Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1911-10-25
CHAPTER v.


CHAPTER V.
Still men were without faith in the
strike When Daylight, with his heavy
outfit of -four, arrived at the mouth of
the Klondike, he found the big fiat as
desolate and tenantless as ever. Down
close by the river, Chief Isaac and his
Indians were camped beside the
frames on which they were drying sal
mon. Several old-times were also in
camp there. Having finished their
summer work on Ten Mile Creek, they
had come down the Yukon, bound for
Circle City. But at Sixty Mile they
had learned of the strike, and stopped
off to look over the ground. They had
just returned to their boat when Day
light landed his flour, and their report
was pessimistic. But an hour later,
at his own camp, Joe Ladue strobe in
Pom Bonanza Creek. He led Daylight
away from the camp and men and
told him things in confidence.
"She's sure there" he said in con-
clusion. 81 didn't sluice it, or cradle
it. I PANIED it, all in that sack, yes
terday, on the rim-rock. tell you you
can shake it out of the grass-roots.
And what's on the bedrock down in
the bottom of the creek they amt no
way of tellin'. But she's big, I tell
you, big. Keep it quiet, and locate all
you can. It's in spots, but I wouldn't
be none surprised if some of them
claims yielded as high as fifty thou
sand. The only trouble is that it's
spotted"
A month passed by, and Bonanza
Creek remained quiet. A sprinkling
of men had staked; but most of them,
after stalking, had gone on down to
Forty Mile and Circle City. The few
that possessed sufficient faith to re-
main were busy building log cabins
against the coming of winter. Car
mack and his Indian relatives were oc-
cupied in building a sluice box and
getting head of water. The work
was slow for they had to saw their
lumber by hand from the standing for
est. But farther down Bonanza were
four men who had drifted in from up
river, Dan McGilvary, Dave Mckay,
Dave Edwards, and Harry Waugh.
They we're a quiet party, neither ask
ing nor giving condolences, and they
herded by themselves. But Daylight,
who had PANIED the spotted rim OF
Carmack's claim and shaken coarse
gold from the grass-roots, and who
had PANIED the rim at hundred 9TH
er places up and down the length OF
the creek and found nothing, was Gu
1gous to know what lay on bedrock.
He had noted the four quiet men sink
ing a shaft close by the stream, and
he had heard thsir whip-saW going as
they made lumber for the sluice boxes.
He did not wait for an invitation, but
he was present the first day they
sluiced. And at the end of five hours
shoveling for one man, he saw them
take out thirteen ounces and half of
gold. 1t was coarse gold, running from
pinheads to twelve-dollar nugget,
and it had come from off bedrock.
The first fall snow was flying that day,
and the Arctic winter was closing
down; but Daylight had no eyes for
the bIeak-gray sadness of the dying,
short-lived summer. He saw his Wis
ion coming true, and on the big fiat
was upreared anew his golden city of
the SHOWS. Gold had been found or
bedrock That was the big thing.
Carmack's strike was assured. Day
light staked a claim in his own name
adjoining three he had purchased with
plug tobacco. This gave him a block
two thousand feet long and extending
in width from rim-rock to rim-rock.
Returning that night to his camp at
the mouth of Klondike, he found in it
Kama, the Indian chief he had left at
Dyea. Kama was travelling by ca
noe, bringing in the last mail Of the
year. In his possession was some two
hundred dollars in gold-dust, which
Daylight Immediately borrowed. In
return, he arranged to stake a claim
for him, which he was to record when
he passed through Forty Mile. When
Kama departed next morning, he car
ried a number of letters for Daylight,
addressed to all the old-timers down
river, in which they were urged to
come up Immediately and stake. Also
Kama carried letters Of similar import,
given him by the other men on Bo-
nanZa.
"It will sure be the gosh-dangdest
stampede that ever was, Daylight
chuckled, as he tried to vision the ex-
cited populations Of Forty Mile and
Circle City tumbling into pOling-boats
and racing the hundreds of miles up
the Yukon; for he knew that his word
would be unquestioningly accepted.
CTO BE CONTINUED.)