The Elk Mountain pilot., 1920-02-12

that wouldn't work for the first thing
l knew l landed on my head in mud
hole, so decided l would do like the
old timers, walk between the nigger-
heads. 1t began to rain and we got
off the trail and walked around in a
big circle and at last found the trail
again. We reached the first road
house, eight miles from Olnes, at 2
o'clock that night. We were all soak
ing wet and hungry; believe me we
ate a hearty meal and slept sound
until the Jap woke us up for break
fast Then we started out for Snow
shoe road house; we saw 4 big brown
bear standing looking at US and one
of the boys yelled at him but he
didn't move. About 5 o'clock we ar
rived at the Halfway road house and
there met the mail man on his way to
Fairbanks; he told us our sister was
looking for us, so after we had supper
and an hours rest instead of staying
there over night brother and
started out alone and walked until
Then we sat down to rest in the sun
shine and soon fell asleep. We got
about two hours rest when the mos
quitos got busy and woke us up. We
started again and at eight o'clock in
the morning we got the first sight of
our sisters road house in the dis
tance, and we were certainly happy
to see the ending of our long tramp
We had not seen our sister in five
years so the meeting was a joyful
one. She bought the road house in
October, 1915, and has been doing
well. My brother began working in
the road house and after three weeks
rest I went down to Livengood and
went to work for Peterson & Co, in
the placer mine. Before 1 went un-
der ground to work, I helped clean
up one day. They had about $4,000
in that clean up. 1t certainly was ex-
citing to us tenderfeet to see all that
gold dust. found one nugget in a
joint in the sluce box and when l
gave it to Mr.. Peterson, the man I
worked for, he said that's nice mug
get you found kid, it is worth about
$45. Next day they took me down in
the mine. The shaft was about ITO
feet deep and from that level you
take out the pay gravel from the
bed rock. The foreman gave me a
wheelharrow, pick and shovel and
started work with the boys, and be-
lieye me, they work all right The
bucket was going up pretty often.
They average about 14O buckets in
eight hours. The gravel is tf,awed
out with hot steam sent through hol-
low drills and the workings are SO
steamy that l got off the planking
several times with my wheelbarrow
before I got the hang of things. re-
manned with .he Peterson Company for
over two years and they were making
good money. The last year I worked
there we found places on the bed rock
where you could get from ten to fif-
teen dollars from a gold pan full Of
gravel. They had bout As men EN-.
plOycu <AUOut 4OO Hicn WOEkcu On
the creek Many made good money.
The winter of 1917 Mr.. Bordness and
I tried our luck at prospecting. We
sunk two shafts to bedrock, one 40
and the other 81 feet, but all we got
was a few colors in the pan, so we
gave it up for while.
1t is wonderful how deep the frost
extends in some places. The miners
tell Of places where the ground is
frozen at $50 feet deep. Still when
the spring comes the ground thaws
for few feet deep and they raise
fine spuds and other vegetables. At
Fairbanks snd at my sisters road
house thsy raised fine vegetables on
ground which at few feet deep was
frossn solid. Things grow much
faster there owing to the fact that
the sun shines nearly all the time In
summer. My sister has lots Of fine
flowers growing also. Alaska IL 60
ing to be fine country when they
get the railroad completed between
Seward and Fairbanks.
On October q, 1918 we left Fair
banks for Chitna and it took US five
days to make the 80 miles. We had
a sweet time on the glacier with the
autos. We went through some low
places between Rapids and Joe's road
house. One auto upset but nobody
hurt. The wind blew pretty strong
in that place. We passed a lake they
call Big Delta and we saw bunch
of caribou in the ice. On our arrival
l decided to go on up to the Kenni-
colt copper mine. They certainly
have some great mines up there