The daily progressive-miner., 1918-09-09
nRUELLING TRIP
 TO BROAD PASS

The following vivid pen picture is typical of the average trials and tribulations of the Alaska prospector who hits the winter trail that it will prove interesting and instructive to those who desire to come to the Ter ritory to ''toil and moil for gold..'
 Doc Metallic, veteran prospectOr and frontiersman, recently returned from trip to this mining property on Ohio river in the Broad Pass region says a recent issue of the Ancnorage Democrat.
 Doc, in company with Slim Neff and Thurmond the assayer, left in March for the head of the Ohio river. The party struck bad weather from the start and had to outface Old Bo- reas day after day.
 On the ninth day they left Chultina river in the morning and planned to make cache at Shotgun creek about eight miles up the Ohio. There was no trail and the soft loose snow had to be packed with snowshoes before the dogs and sled could negotiate it.
 Three men would mush on coll- pie of hundred yards and back to the dogs. then the sled could be brought up and left while another piece of trail was beten down. In the after noon the wind came up and it started to snow heavily which added greatly to the toll. When the mushers would get back to the sled after making a couple of hundred yards ahead there was no sign of trail. Night came on and the snowfall increased; the men becoming exhausted and forced to make siwash camp for the night. As they did not expect to make camp on the road they had no cooking utensils, or grub that could be pre- pared witho out; so they went to bed supperless with about twenty feet of snow for a mattress and a couple of miles of the same stuff for a ;lanket. But thanks to Prometheus or whoever it was that stole the heavenly flame from Olympus, they had a fire-and if it was a choice between fire and fire would win. A man can live on guts and backbone if he has the di- vine spark. In the morning after breakfast Slim started up the river to look for the cache, knowing it was near. Thurmond started an hour later. The storm had increased and no sign of Sims trail could be seen. Thurmond mushed about three miles, decided he lad passed the cache and turned bac.-. On the way he turned off tto' trail to inspect a bench where he thought the cache should be and caught a glimpse of the white canvas covering high up in the tops of the spruce. Returning to the river he put note in croched stick and an arrow pointing to the cache for Slim and then returned to the cache.
 A tent was discovered as a slight uneveness in the broad expanse of snow. A shovel from the cache soon dug it out and in the tent was dry wood and shavings ready for the match. In and hour rice and biscuits and tea were ready and Slim came staggering in too spent to take off his snowshoes-he had gone four miles up the river, missed the cache and was preparing to siwash it for an- other night. The tea and biscuits put life and heart into both men and they started back at once to get Doc and the dogs before dark. It was only a mile and a half from where they had siwashed it to the cache but a mile and half of mushing dogs under the trail conditions was leart creaking work
 All three men reached the cache at ' o'clock and soon had a supper ready of rice, bacon. biscuits and tea That night little snow-covered tent in the heart of the Alaska wilderness held more genuine luxury than a kings palace.
 For ten days it stormed snow and wind, and by way of variety wind and snow. It would snow five or six feet and the north wind would blow it sway and the next day would blow it back again. It was only four miles to the party's destination but for ten days that four miles might as well have been four hundred