The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1915-08-28
Are You Willing to Shoot
Rapids of Alaskan Stream
to Reach Gold Land?
THAT'S THE ONLY WAY
Life Loses Value and Dan
ger Becomes Commonplace
on Northern Gold Trails.

huge PACKS OF SHOW eAIcuuAuS ClcdI
across the river. For days we remain
ed in this snow prison. What little
food that had not been carried away
was soon eaten but we managed to
subsist on raw deer meat, cut from
the carcasses of few deers which
had been caught in the slide. At last
the current in mid river cut a narrow
channel through this snow barrier. It
was our only avenue of escape. To re-
main in our camp meant death, to at
tempt to get out of the slide through
the channel the water had cut through
the snow barrier meant almost certain
death because of the wild rapids
which extended down the river for
miles. We decided to take the chance,
however. Any desperate men would
have done so. Securing a few logs
from the snow pack we. dashed them
together with tent strips and gun
straps, making a fairly secure raft.
the only kind of a craft which could
live in those rapids We did not know
where we were going but we were on
our way and we did not even have a
compass to aid us, for it had been
swept away by the slide.
Raft Was Nightmare.
Il don't know how long we were on
that raft. The trip was a nightmare of
hell. Each OF us was tied on to it and
before the horror of the thing rem
dered me almost unconscious to my
surroundings l was in constant terror
because of the raft coming into violent
contact with huge rocks every few
minutes. We were frequently SUBJ
merged in the ice filled water but the
raft always succeeded in righting it.
self. l cannot tell you how long we
were on that raft. 1t must have been
two Or three days. We were all sense
less before the craft finally beached
itself. Spratt, huge fellow with an
iron constitution, was the first man to
come too and he had great difficulty
in arousing us. We were all so ex-
hausted and chilled we could hardly
move and we did not know which di-
rection to strike off in because we had
no compass. We had to depend upon
our instinct, which was a pretty good
thing to depend upon, thank God, be-
cause we had lived in the wilds so
long we were almost like animals in
that respect.
Managed to Keep Guns.
Fortunately we still had our guns
with us, but they were about all we
did have except our ragged clothing
For weeks we staggered through the
wilderness, always following the sun s
path and living off the raw meat OF
deer and small game. Spratt, man of
iron, led the way and fought, cussed
and urged us to follow him. One day
when Haberback, O'Donnell and my
self were just about all in and ready to
quit l saw thin column of smoke to
the southwest. AS fast as our weary
legs could carry us we made off in its
direction. We thought it was an In
dian camp. Finally l climbed a hillock
and there before my eyes was a camp
Of troopers of our own regiment and
the only other Ohio man in the outfit
besides myself sitting in front of a
shack whiting. l yelled at him and
his eyes almost popped out of his head
when he saw me. Come here you
damned grizzly bear or I'll shoot you,
he finally yelled, and l told him we
were too much all in to make the rest
of the distance. The other fellows
half dragged us to the shacks. They
had been there two weeks waiting for
the SHOWS to break enough to continue
their search for US. After we had rest
ed up we continued our hike back to
the coast