The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1937-03-25
CHAPTER 1

Jack Hammond rejected, as ne
walked up from the wharf, that
rain was Prince Rupert's most
bountiful crop.
\ He made the climb from the wa
ter front and cut across the little
terraced park, where totem poles
stood cleaning with moisture and
grotesquely lonely. Everything
dripped in Prince Rupert this morn
ing, even the discolored, stuffed Ka-
diak bear in front of Al Monson's
trading store. At last Hammond
halted abruptly, looking over the
wooden fence of a back yard.
HowlS and whines had centered his
attention.
what are you trying to do with
that dog?" he asked. A man halted
in his efforts to kick harnessed
mongrel into progress along a
muddy space before a makeshift
sleigh, weighted with stones.
Going to make sled dog out
of him"
'That bozo? He hasn't got the
weight for it."
'Oh, he's pretty strong" The
man grinned. "Say, they'll be buy
ing anything where this dogs go
ing!"
Where's that?"
The pseudo trainer jerked his
head toward the white pinnacles of
distant mountains.
lover the hills there in B. c."
the man said, "up the Caribou riv-
er, somewhere around the valley of
the Stikine. Haven't you heard
about it?"
Hammond's features had become
strangely grim.
whats going on?"
'Where've you been that you
haven't read the papers?"
ION the Aleutian, coming up from
Vancouver"
The dog trainer stared.
''The ship that got in this morn
ing?" he asked. "And you didn't
know about it? Then you must have
been deaf, dumb and blind. There
were plenty of others who came
on that boat-just because of it."
Because of WHAT" Jack Ham,
mond's hands, where they gripped
the fence, were strangely discol-
ored.
well, if you amt kidding-the
gold rush. Two fellows found placer
gold up there. A couple of guys
named Mckenzie Joe Britten and
his partner, Jack Hammond"
ooh, see," said Hammond jerk
lily.
"Yeh." The volunteer trainer
rubbed casually at the loose fur of
his dog. "Guess they'd figured to
keep it quiet, all for themselves, you
know. But this Hammond goes down
to Seattle to see some old girl he'd
been stuck on ever since he was a
kid. Then he got on big bust and
spilled everything. It's been in all
the papers, I guess. Quite a ro-
nance"
eyes, quite" said Hammond thin
ly. $50 everybody's figuring on 60
ing up there, eh?"
Everybody and his brother.
That's why thought I'd train this
dog"
"That dog can't make the grade
in the Stikine country. Zero's hot
day around there this time of year.
No chest. Thin legs. A light coat
from being around this coast coun-
try. No hair on his fetched last
about two days on the trail"
''That amt my worry. Let the
fellow who buys him lose sleep over
that" He gave the dog kick,
shouting: "Mush! Mush on, there!'
The dogs bowls remained in
Jack Hammond's ears as he walked
slowly up the street. So this was a
gold rush - this an echo of the
broken laughter and excited jabber-
ings of himself and Mckenzie Joe
Britten, one day last autumn, up
there in the far-away Stikine coun-
try. Then their discovery of placer
or nugget gold, poor mans gold,
as it is so often called, had brought
great visions. Here was new mon.
ey, waiting to be washed from the
gravel of a river, and of value the
minute it was found; no need for
great shafts and expensive machin-
cry to extract this wealth.
There had been big talk that day
of what new gold meant to a wait.
ing world, the happiness it would
bring, the accomplishments. There
had been no thought of the greed,