X.

How Cheechaco Hill was Named

The war did the work of a can-opener on many national and individual reputations, and discovered that their accepted labels were misleading. The estimates we had formed of certain nations have materially changed because of the part they took, didn't take, or were slow about taking in this world-crisis. We saw the effect more clearly on individuals. The standing a man had in his community might be taken at its face value in the battalion for a few weeks, but he was soon re-examined, and if necessary, the label changed to be true to contents. This was especially evident overseas when we were away from home and its influences. There is a camouflage possible in civilian life where a man's real self is not known much outside his own home. This camouflage was usually torn aside in the army. We were thrown into such continuous intimate relations with one another in the huts and outside them that there was little chance for any man to travel under false pretences. It wasn't many days before you were sized up physically, mentally, and morally. The O.C., Adjutant, and senior officers were the only ones in a battalion having more privacy and protected by military etiquette who, if they wished, might wear a mask for a time, but not for long. The whole battalion somehow soon got to know pretty much all about them, or thought it knew, and labelled them accordingly.

Some men with fair reputations in their home town in Canada were found in rare instances to be cads in camp and curs in the line. But to the honor of those of the old British stock, our own Canadian men in particular, the great fear in the hearts of multitudes of them was that they might not be able to do or be all that the highest traditions of race or family expected of them. They came from the comfort of peaceful homes where war had meant only an old, foolish, long-abandoned way of settling international disputes. At the call of brotherhood, they left those quiet homes and came in their hundreds of thousands to the old lands across the sea. There, in training, they were surrounded with strange conditions of life, and when later they went into the line were faced with tasks of incredible difficulty and harshness. Throughout the long years of war they were rarely disconcerted and never dismayed. Most of them were just good, ordinary, Canadian boys, practically untested until now, but in tribulation developing qualities that made them men "whom the King delighted to honor." Labelled, if you like, "plum-and-apple," when opened up they proved to be genuine "strawberry." Faithful comrades, brave soldiers, they played the new game so nobly and well during those weary, homesick, war-cursed years that they won for Canada a name unsurpassed in honor among the nations.

It was not so much the grand moment of an attack that revealed character but the strain and monotony of the common round of a soldier's life. It was the pack, the trenches, the mud, the dug-out, and the hut, that showed you up for what you really were. When you got a fruitcake from home did you "hog it" all yourself or share it with your chums in generous chunks? Did you squeeze in near the stove on a cold day no matter who else was shoved away? Did you barely do your routine duty or go further and lend a helping hand? These were the sort of tests in common-place forms that made it impossible to hide your own true self from the other fellows. If you asked me for instances I could fill a page with names from my own acquaintance of young chaps previously untried who proved themselves "gentlemen unafraid."

It was a severe test for the young men, but peculiarly hard for those in our volunteer army who were middle-aged. With habits formed and living a settled life at home, they abandoned it cheerfully, and unflinchingly set about accommodating themselves in the most unselfish spirit to necessary campaign conditions, which must have been to them almost intolerable.

In this condition I have in mind Captain Turner, Medical Officer to the 43rd Battalion for six months. He was a man near fifty years of age, with wife and family left behind at home in a Western Ontario town. "Doc" Turner joined us at Nine Elms, where we were resting in the mud after our attack on Bellevue Spur. He came direct from the base and had never seen any front line work. It was customary for the M.O. and the Padre to live together and work together in and out of the line, so he shared a tent with me. A few days after his arrival we moved into the line for the second time on the Passchendaele front. It was on the evening before this move that he did me a service that I shall never forget. He "saved my face" in the battalion. This is how it came about. That afternoon I sat in my chilly tent writing some of the many letters which I had to write to folks at home, telling about their heroic dead. Captain Turner had gone over to Poperinghe. I sat too long at my work and got chilled through. After supper I was feeling wretched and went to bed hoping that a few hours warmth and rest would cure me. I got worse, and about 10 o'clock to cap the climax, when I was feeling very miserable, a runner came from the orderly room with the news that we were to pull out for the line next morning, breakfast at five and move at six. Then the horrible thought came to me that perhaps I wouldn't be able to go with the battalion. If I weren't a great deal better by morning I would have to stay behind in a C.C.S. at Remy. What then would everybody think? It looked queer that I should be going around quite well that day and then, when the order comes to go back into the line, I take suddenly ill. I knew my own boys would say nothing, but perhaps in the back of their minds they would wonder if their padre was really scared. But no matter how charitable the Camerons were it would look to outsiders deplorably like a genuine case of malingering. My one and only hope seemed to lie in the magic of Doc's medicines. "As I mused the fire burned." He had not returned and the medical tent was a hundred yards away in the mud. How anxiously I listened for his footsteps but it was one o'clock before I heard the welcome sound. He was very tired with the six-mile walk and busy day and after I told what the orders were I hadn't the heart at first to let him know how sick and worried I was. He had taken off one boot before in desperation I poured out my tale of woe. Good old Doc! He cheerfully pulled on his wet boot again and went out into the night and rain and through the mud, roused Sergt. Sims and hunted around till he got the stuff he wanted. He was soon back and made me swallow fifteen grains of aspirin. I would have swallowed an earthquake if he had promised it would cure me. Then he piled his greatcoat and one of his own blankets on me. Enough to say I was clear of the fever in the morning and devoutly thankful that, although a little shaky, I was able to form up with the rest at six o'clock.

Doc played the game just like that all through his first spell in the line. Often I wondered at the matter-of-fact way he carried on like "an old hand" under conditions which were bad enough in all conscience to everyone, but must have been doubly so to him. But if the real stuff is in a man it will show up "under fire" some day, and Captain Turner is only typical of thousands of uncertain-looking "prospects" that assayed almost pure gold in the crucible of war. When our turn was over and the welcome news came to move back to divisional rest, Doc and I travelled out together with two or three of the boys. We had about five miles to go and the Hun artillery seemed to be chasing us with his shells. They dropped just behind us with uncanny precision for a mile or two blowing up the slat duck-walks we had come over. I was in the lead and because of "the general scarcity of good men" I was hitting a fast pace. At last I heard him call out, "Hold on, padre, I can't keep this pace any longer. They can blow me to Kingdom-come if they like but I'm going to slow up whatever happens." Strange, too, that slowing up saved our lives, for a few minutes after we were stopped by a salvo of shells ahead of us bursting where we would have been if Doc hadn't put on the brakes.

The battalion moved far back to the sleepy little farming village of Westerhem where one day Captain Ross, of the Y.M.C.A. sent a request to come over and give a Klondike talk to the men in a neighbouring town. That evening they filled the big marquee and stayed for over an hour while I told them how Cheechaco Hill got its name. It is a story with a moral and has a logical connection with my prologue. What that is I think you will have little difficulty in discovering if you read the story.

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The creek names of the Klondike are filled with the romance of the early days. They tell in large something of the story of the pioneer. The names all have color. They speak of incident and adventure, of hopefulness and disappointment, of loneliness and homesickness. There's Dominion Creek and Fourth of July Creek. You hardly need be told that a Canadian "discovered" one and a Yankee the other. "Whisky Hill," "Squabblers' Bench," "Paradise Hill" has each a story of its own and the names hint at it. Mastodon Gulch with its remains of bone and ivory found in the ever-frozen gravels takes us back to the giant Tuskers of those prehistoric ages before the northland was gripped by the frost. Bear Creek suggests an adventure resulting perhaps in a juicy bear-steak or a hurried scramble up a tree. All Gold Creek, Too Much Gold, and Gold Bottom have the optimism of their discoverers boldly disclosed. Of these three only the last paid to work. I asked Bob Henderson, from Pictou County, Nova Scotia, the discoverer of the Klondike Gold-fields, why he chose the name "Gold Bottom." "On the principle," he said, "that it's wise to give a youngster a good name to inspire him to live up to it. I had a day-dream, you know, that when I got my shaft down to bed-rock it might be like the streets of the New Jerusalem. We old-timers all had these dreams. It kept us going on and on, wandering, and digging on these lonely creeks for years." Last Chance Creek has a story of its own and sometime I may tell you what I know of it. It entered Hunker Creek about fifteen miles back of Dawson. In the rush days a roadhouse was put up there and named after the Creek. Later it was assumed that the creek was named after the roadhouse and that the roadhouse got its name because it was the last chance to get a drink outward bound on that trail!

But I must get to my story of Cheechaco Hill. There are two words in common use in the Yukon, one is Sourdough and the other Cheechaco. A sourdough is an old-timer, cheechaco is a Chinook word meaning greenhorn, tenderfoot, or new-comer. In every old prospector's cabin on a shelf behind the stove-pipe you would see a bowl which contained sour dough from the previous baking. This was used as yeast to be mixed in with the dough at the next baking. When he used any he would always replace it with the same quantity of fresh dough sure to be soured before he made bread again. The cheechaco had to learn how to bake and usually would borrow some of this yeast-dough from some old-timer down the trail until he had his own sour-dough and so earned his graduate title. Now for my story.

In the winter following the discovery of the Klondike diggings, two Australians were sitting in their cabin on Bonanza Creek at No. 5 below Discovery, having a smoke after a hard day's grind down the drift and on the windlass. One of them was telling with great relish of a practical joke he had played that day on two cheechacos. The winter trail in the creek valley ran close on their shaft. That afternoon two men, evidently partners, hauling their outfit and sleigh had stopped for a rest and one of them had climbed up the dump to the windlass and, after a word or two of greeting, commenced to tell their difficulties. They wanted to find some place to put in their stakes, "open" ground that they could "claim" for their own on which to prospect. They had come seven miles up the creek and there seemed to be nothing open. They asked the Australian if he could tell them where they could stake. This question revealed them as the most verdant of cheechacos, for if you knew of any unstaked ground likely to have paydirt in it you weren't going to give your information to a stranger. You or your partner would slip away quietly after dark. You would carefully endeavour to conceal your movements until you had the ground securely staked and recorded. Even then any information you might have would only be given to other friends. So of course he told the strangers he could not help them.

The cheechaco then asked him if it would be any use staking on the mountain side, overlooking the creek. This was too much for the old-timer for everyone with any sense knows that alluvial gold can't climb a hill. It was a natural law that the heaviest substances always seek the lowest levels. Gold was no exception to this rule. You find it in bed-rock in the valleys where it has burrowed its way down whenever a run of water has loosened things up and given it a chance. So the Australian couldn't resist the temptation to agree that there was lots of room on the mountain-side, plenty of trees, they'd be above the frost-fog and "nearer heaven" than in the creeks. They took the thing seriously, asked a few more questions about correct methods of staking and recording and then went on their way. It was a right good joke and such green specimens were certainly proper game; somebody would put them wise up at the Forks anyway, and the two had a hearty laugh over the incident.

A day or two afterwards they saw a small tent and the smoke of a fire on the hill opposite, sure enough the cheechacos had "bit." They had staked two claims, a "bench" and a "hillside" adjoining, and were cutting wood and hauling moss for a cabin. The news spread along Bonanza until all the creek knew about it and laughed. The two men didn't sense anything wrong and looked upon the Australians as their friends. They often came down to the cabin to get advice about building their cabin, how to fit the corners, what size to make it, where to get the moss for the roof and chinking between the logs in the walls. They needed pointers about cooking and a supply of sourdough for their first batch of bread. Apart from their ignorance of frontier ways, they were right good fellows. One came from England, the other, Nels Peterson, from Sweden. They had fallen in with one another in Seattle when they happened to be outfitting in the same store, there they had spoken to one another, got acquainted, and agreed to go north as partners. One was a professional Swedish music-hall comedian and the other a London "cabby" with a witty tongue and a kind heart. Such were the strange partnerships of the Klondike.

In a few weeks the cabin was completed, seven feet by eight. The next step was to sink a shaft. By this time the old-timers were regretting their part in the affair. They decided not to say anything until after the cabin was finished, because these strangers would have to build a cabin somewhere in which to live. Now they hesitated to confess the trick they had played on their new found friends. They concluded that the best way out for all concerned was to let them learn necessary lessons in cabin building and sinking a shaft, and then tell them, when they had gone down a few feet and found no gold, that probably they had better go and try again on some outlying creek like Eureka or Black Hills. That looked the easiest way out of a situation which had become unexpectedly embarrassing. The best they could do now was to say nothing and give every assistance in hurrying the farce to its finish. After the cabin was completed the snow was shovelled away from a ten-foot patch where a landslide had made it comparatively level. There a fire was lit to thaw the ground, for it never thaws in the Klondike except by artificial means. When this had been burnt out they dug down three or four feet to frost, cleared out the hole, and put down another fire. So by successive "fires" they slowly worked their way down. At ten feet they had to stop digging operations to make a hand-windlass, an "Armstrong hoist" we called it, and a wooden bucket. The fires for thawing were still needed. Now one man worked down the shaft and the other on the windlass hoisting the filled bucket and lowering the empty one. They thawed and dug this way through four feet of moss, then twelve feet of black "muck" before they struck gravel. They had been told not to bother about "panning" in muck. There was never gold in muck anyway. When they got into gravel a pan of it was taken into the cabin and washed out. There were no results.

Keenly disappointed they went down to their two friends that night and told them of their bad luck in not getting gold when they got into gravel. They were interrupted by excited exclamations and questions. Surely it couldn't be really gravel, they must be mistaken for no gravel could get up there. If it were true gravel it meant the upsetting of all current placer mining theories, and the prospect of unlimited possibilities of new gold deposits on hillsides and benches. Such news would set the whole Klondike on the stampede again. But of course there must be a mistake. It was broken up slide-rock and not gravel. Next morning they would come up and have a look. So they did and there was no doubt about the gravel. The cheechacos were advised to go on "sinking" and on no account to "talk" at store or roadhouse. After every thaw the Australians went up to see how things looked. One day "colors" were found in the pan, and after that the four worked together unceasingly in rushing the digging as fast as the need of thawing would permit. The light flakes of yellow gold continued but it wasn't "pay" yet.

One memorable evening, after an all-day spell of work without panning, the four men gathered in the little cabin around the panning tub in the corner to test dirt taken out eight feet lower than the last sample. They were all bending over eagerly, watching in the dim candle light one of the sourdoughs, an expert, who was squatted beside the tub with the pan in his hands under water. Holding it aslant, he twisted it back and forth with a sort of circular motion until the top dirt was gradually washed off and the gravelly stones left. These he scraped off with his hands and then repeated the whole process. Slowly the pan was emptying. If there was any gold it would be slipping down to the bottom of the pan at the lower edge of it. The candle was held closer and breathlessly the four men watched as the last few inches of the pan bottom cleared of dirt. There was only an inch of black sand and gravel now. The miner swirled the pan in the water again, then brought it up and near the candle, ran his finger through the margin of dirt still remaining and as he did so he left uncovered a shining track of yellow gold! There was a moment's silence, a hurried, deft swirl in the water and the pan was carried over to the table. There with bent heads they gazed with tense emotion first at the slender thread of gold and then at one another. Not much in itself, but it meant—well, who could tell what amazing new finds it might mean? Perhaps richer than anything yet known! Soon they were talking in earnest excited tones. The impossible had come true and they had found, on that hill side, a "prospect" which, if the pay dirt continued for any distance or depth, would bring untold wealth to them. It was a great night in that Klondike cabin. The sourdoughs confessed without reservation their attempt to play off a joke and how they had long been ashamed of it. The cheechacos laughed it off in good-will that was heightened by the happy outcome of it all. The Australians were to stake claims beside them that night and then to rouse their friends who were near and have them stake on half interests. The hillside was to be called on the records "Cheechaco Hill" in memory of its discoverers.

By the next day the news had leaked out, the camp went crazy, and in a week every piece of ground right over the Klondike summits from creek to creek had been staked off in claims, no matter how absurdly unlikely the locality was, although in the scramble many very rich hillsides were found.

Some punster said that the only "benches" in the Klondike that weren't staked were those of my log-church at Gold Bottom! And it was practically true. I remember once when going down Indian River noticing a tree with its trunk "blazed," and on the blaze these words were written: "I, Ole Nelson, claim 25 ft. straight up in the air for climbing purposes!" He had been chased up that tree by a bear and had put the event on record in this way, and indeed about the only direction by that time that was open for staking was "up in the air."

There was, however, much reason for this indiscriminate staking. It seemed as if gold was likely to be found anywhere now that it climbed up the hillsides. But in a year or two the mining operations showed how the gold got there. Ages ago there had been an upheaval of some kind that had changed the course of the streams and had made valleys hills, and hills valleys. These deposits were in what had formerly been river or creek bottoms. The hill-side seemed an unlikely place but the gold was there, and the digging disclosed it buried deep where God had placed it, not haphazard, but according to one of the laws of nature.

XI.

The Lost Patrol

In the Spring of 1918, following the smashing attack of the Germans towards Amiens, orders came from the French Military Headquarters, that all civilians were to move from towns near the line to safer areas further back. This order nearly got me into a "mix-up." It happened I was billeted at Madame Buay's humble home in La Brebis, when the new regulation came to them like a bomb from the blue.

One day soon after, at 5.30 A.M., Madame and her boy came to my room to bid me a tearful adieu. It was arranged by the authorities that they must leave before nine o'clock that morning. There was much talk, and would I help her so kindly by buying her poor little rabbits. They would starve if left behind and she could not take them. "There were just three," she said. I bought them for twenty francs; thought they would make a savoury stew for our Mess.

About half past nine, I went to view my livestock. When behold, to my dismay, I found that my three rabbits had increased, in the course of nature, to ten, and there were signs of more "in the offing." On the top of this came an unexpected message for the Battalion to move out at 2 P.M. that day. I tried to sell my rabbits to the local butcher, who had been permitted to stay until he cleared out his stock of meat. But no, he wouldn't buy them. They weren't, of course, fit to kill for food. At last in desperation, for I couldn't leave the beasts to starve, I rounded up the half-dozen small boys left in the place and unloaded my rabbits on them. I knew the ordinary boy cannot resist the offer of a live rabbit, even though father and mother might object. I would be gone by that time anyway. I tell only the simple truth, (those who know rabbits will not question it), when I state that I had not three nor ten, but sixteen rabbits, big and little, to give away to the boys. A second contingent had arrived numbering six! I was relieved to be quit of them, for at the rate they had multiplied that day I could see myself, before many weeks, marching at the head of a battalion of rabbits!

It was pitiful to see these French people leaving the homes in which they, or their ancestors, had lived for generations. Pathos and humor combined, sometimes, in the appearance of the odd conveyances and the motive-power used. I saw one dear old lady propped up in a wheelbarrow, her son trundling her along. There were plenty other strange and sorry sights. With it all they seemed cheerful, and determined to make the best of everything.

This battalion-trek I stayed behind with a half-company of men who had been held by fatigue-duties. When we set out we decided to try a short-cut across the fields, but we wandered considerably, and had not reached our destination when supper-time drew near. We had no provisions with us. While the men were resting by the road, tired, hot, and hungry, I sauntered off by myself to where I noticed a wreath of smoke above the trees of an orchard. I saw a few soldiers there, standing by a fire not far from the farm-sheds. As I got closer two of them came hesitatingly towards me, saluted, and one said, "Sir, is your name Pringle?" I said it was, and then we discovered that eighteen years before we had knocked around together in the Atlin gold-diggings.

They remembered me after all those years! They belonged to a detachment of Canadian Railway Troops. The upshot of it was that when I told them of my tired and hungry kilties, they got me into friendly touch with the Q.M. Sergeant billeted in the farmhouse. He showed himself a right good fellow and in short order I was on my way back to my men heading a small but well-laden carrying-party. Our boys could hardly believe their eyes when they saw us toddling along, laden with two big kitchen dixies of hot tea, a dozen loaves of bread and a full tin of good, fresh hard-tack. The tea and rations refreshed us and made the remaining kilometres easy.

We found the battalion located in a picturesque little farm-village. The group of houses lay snugly hidden among trees, while out on all sides, over rolling land, one could see long stretches of cultivated fields, in blocks of brown and varying shades of green. Other than the farm buildings, there was only a small store, a blacksmith shop, and a tavern. The houses were ancient, built with out-buildings to enclose a court-yard, in the centre of which was, almost invariably, a manure-pile and cess-pool.

The inhabitants were primitive in their ways, kindly farm-folk of simple manners, hard-working and apparently contented.

One well, over 130 feet deep, served for public use. It was worked by a hand-windlass and to get a pail of water was a laborious process. The rough wooden shelter over it was erected, so the inscription read, in 1879. I suppose it was an event in village history when that shelter was added. There must be a wide variety of things, besides water, at the bottom of that well. The water tasted good enough, but one's imagination should not be allowed to work too carefully over the subject.

Chatting along the way after we left the Railway Troops, my talk naturally turned from the kindness done us through those Klondike friends, to other fine men I knew in the North. I was made to promise to tell "the bunch" a Yukon Story some evening after we got properly settled in our new billets. Two or three nights afterwards, I redeemed my promise. In one of the old barns, sitting on a low beam, with the men lying around in the straw, I related to them the grim tragedy of the Lost Patrol.

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In the annals of frontier-life anywhere you like in the world, nothing can be found more filled with heroic incident in the performance of duty and the maintenance of a high prestige, than the history of our own Canadian Mounted Police. I choose this particular story, because it exemplifies, so clearly, their dominating sense of duty and the quiet fortitude in the face of danger and death, characteristic of their splendid record. It occurred in the far North, in Klondike days, in a region through which I have travelled and so it has for me a double interest.

Every winter since the Big Stampede, the Mounted Police have patrolled the four hundred miles of wilderness lying between Dawson and Fort McPherson. The latter place consists of a dozen log buildings, on the MacKenzie, far in the Arctic. It is the centre of administration for a hundred thousand square miles of territory. Dawson, the well-known gold-camp, is on the Yukon River, close to the edge of the Arctic Circle. One round trip is made each winter, with dog-teams carrying mail, personal and official, needed to keep that Northern world of Indians, Eskimo, Whites, and half-breeds, in touch with civilization, and to uphold our British traditions of law and order.

The journey is always beset with dangers. One day out, and the members of the patrol know that their lives depend wholly on themselves. They may see no one else for twenty or thirty days. They will go through a vast and lonely land travelling along the wide valleys of frozen rivers, up long narrow gulches filled with snow, over miles of wind-swept mesas, and across high, treeless, mountain ridges. "All goes well, if all goes well," is a proverb of the trail, for in winter-time there, death is always near. His opportunity comes easily in numerous ways. A gashed foot cut by a slip of the axe in getting firewood, a sprained ankle, an unsheltered camp with a blizzard in the night, fog, or wind, or snowstorm, sick dogs or men, short rations, a mile in the wrong direction, all these very simply lead to distress, maiming or death. The greatest and commonest danger comes from the glacial overflows. In winter the creeks freeze solid. This dams back the water in its sources in the banks, until the expulsive force in the hidden springs, deep in the mountains, drives the water out on top of the ice. Even in the most extreme cold you will find in these canyons, under the snow or shoal ice, pools of this overflow water remaining liquid for hours. To get into this with moccasins means an immediate camp and fire, otherwise there will be frozen feet and permanent crippling, and if one is alone and dry wood not at hand, it is fatal. All these and more are the chances the experienced "musher" must be prepared to take. No "tenderfoot," in his right senses, would attempt such a long journey, in winter, alone.

It was the morning of December 21st, 1910, that the patrol left Fort McPherson for Dawson. It comprised Inspector Fitzgerald, Constables Taylor and Kinney, and Special Constable Carter, with three dog-teams of five dogs each. They expected to be in Dawson about the beginning of February. They never reached Dawson. Their comrades at Fort McPherson of course gave no anxious thought to them, and when the Dawson search-party came in at close of day on March 22nd, it was with surprise and horror, that they heard of the loss of the whole patrol. Next day the frozen bodies of all four were brought in, those who three months before had set out on that wilderness journey, so keen and strong. They were found within thirty miles of the Fort, but it was a long, long trail of 300 terrible miles that they had travelled.

Towards the end of January the Dawson police commenced to expect the patrol. After the first week in February, they became uneasy. On the 20th February some Fort McPherson Indians arrived in Dawson. One of them, named Esau, had been with the patrol, as guide, to the head of Mountain Creek, where he was discharged on New Year's Day. The Police had lost their way, had come on this camp of Indians and employed Esau to guide them until Fitzgerald was satisfied the party could do without him, when he was dismissed. It was a tragic mistake.

On the 28th February, Supt. Snyder of the Dawson Post, fearing trouble, despatched the relief-party under Corporal Dempster, consisting in addition, of Constables Fyfe and Turner and a half-breed named Charles Stewart. March 12th, on the McPherson side of the Divide, Dempster saw the first sure traces of the lost patrol. In the Big Wind River valley he found a night-camp which had doubtless been made by the missing men. There were one or two empty butter and canned-beef tins lying about and a piece of flour-sack marked, "R.N.W.M. Police, Fort McPherson." The morning of March 16th, they discovered a toboggan and seven sets of dog-harness "cached" about six miles up Mountain Creek. On searching more carefully, a dog's paws and shoulder-blade were found, from the latter of which, the flesh had evidently been cooked and eaten.

Ten miles from Seven-Mile Portage, March 21st, Dempster noticed a blue handkerchief tied to a willow. He went over to it, climbed the bank, and broke through the fringe of willows into the timber. There before his eyes was the end of a chapter in the sad story. In the snow lay the bodies of Constables Kinney and Taylor. A fire had been at their feet. Their camp kettle was half-full of moose-skin, which had been cut up into small pieces and boiled. Dempster's party cut some brush, covered the bodies with it, and went on in the direction of the Fort. He says in his report, "I had now concluded that Fitzgerald and Carter had left these two men in a desperate effort to reach the Fort, and would be found somewhere between this point and McPherson. Next morning, about ten miles further down the river, a trail appeared to lead towards the shore and while feeling in the new snow for the old tracks underneath, we kicked up a pair of snow-shoes. We then climbed the bank and a little way back in the woods we came on the bodies of the other two men. This was Wednesday the 22nd March. Carter had died first, for he had been laid out upon his back, his hands crossed upon his breast and a handkerchief placed over his face. Fitzgerald lay near him."

Dempster and his party then went on to Fort McPherson arriving about six o'clock in the afternoon the same day. There help was obtained and the remains were brought in. On March 28th, the four bodies were laid side by side, in the same grave. The funeral service was read by the Rev. C. E. Whittaker, the Church of England missionary at that remote point. A firing-party of five men fired the usual volleys over the grave. The brave men of the lost patrol had all come to their last camping-ground.

Fitzgerald's diary of the fatal journey was found. He had kept it up to Sunday, February 5th, when it ceased. Between the lines, for there is no sign of weakening in the written words, one can read the pathetic story of a long struggle against death from starvation and exposure, an heroic battle, maintained to the last in terrible agony. Let me quote but six entries from the diary. It was carefully written commencing December 21st, the day they left the Fort. It is a sad but thrilling drama extending over fifty days, staged in a mystic, white, winter-land, cruel and lonely, silent too, save for the howl of wolf or roar of mountain storm. Every entry is of absorbing interest, but the quotations suffice to tell of the fateful seven days spent in vainly searching for the pass up Forrest Gulch, and then the brave struggle to retrace their steps to Fort McPherson. Death ever came closer, stalked at last beside them every moment. He had no power to destroy their unconquerable spirits but he finally claimed their weary, worn-out bodies. Here is the chronicle.

"Tuesday, Jan. 17th. Twenty three degrees below zero. Fine in the morning, with a strong gale in the evening. Did not break camp. Sent Carter and Kinney off at 7.15 A.M. to follow a river going south by a little east. They returned at 3.30 P.M. and reported that it ran right up into the mountains, and Carter said it was not the right river. I left at 8.00 A.M. and followed a river running south but could not see any cuttings on it. Carter is completely lost and does not know one river from another. We have now only ten pounds of flour, and eight pounds of bacon, and some dried fish. My last hope is gone (of getting through to Dawson) and the only thing I can do is to return and kill some of the dogs to feed the others and ourselves, unless we can meet some Indians. We have now been a week looking for a river to take us over the divide, but there are dozens of rivers and I am at a loss. I should not have taken Carter's word that he knew the way from Little Wind river."

* * * * *

"Tuesday, Jan. 24th. Fifty-six below. Strong south wind with very heavy mist. Left camp at 7.30, went six miles and found the river overflowed right across. Constable Taylor got in to the waist and Carter to the hips, and we had to go into camp at 11.00 A.M. Cold intense for all the open water. Killed another dog and all hands made a good meal on dog-meat."

* * * * *

"Tuesday, Jan. 31st. Forty-five below. Sixty-two below in the afternoon. Left camp at 7.15 A.M. had to double-up teams for the first mile and a half. Nooned one hour and camped at 4.15 P.M. four miles from Caribou river. Going heavy, travelled part of the time on our old trail, but it was filled in. Skin peeling off our faces and parts of the body, lips all swollen and split. I suppose this is caused by feeding on dog-meat. Everybody feeling the cold very much for want of proper food. Made seventeen miles."

* * * * *

"Wednesday, Feb. 1st. Fifty-one below. Left camp at 7.30 A.M. and camped at 4.30 P.M. on the river where we start around Caribou Born mountain. Killed another dog to-night. This makes eight dogs that we have killed. We have eaten most of them and fed what dried fish we had to the dogs. Sixteen miles."

"Friday, Feb. 3rd. Twenty-six below. Left camp at 7.15 A.M. Men and dogs very thin and cannot travel far. We have gone about 200 miles on dog-meat and have still about 100 miles to go. I think we shall make it all right but will have only three or four dogs left. Fourteen miles."

* * * * *

"Saturday, Feb. 5th. Forty-eight below. Just after noon I broke through shoal ice and had to make fire, found one foot slightly frozen. Killed another dog to-night; have only five dogs now and can only go a few miles a day: everybody breaking out on the body and skin peeling off. Eight miles."

These were his last written words, except his will, scrawled on a torn piece of paper with a cinder from the burnt-out fire by which he died. It read;—"All money in despatch bag and bank, clothes etc., I leave to my beloved mother, Mrs. John Fitzgerald, Halifax. God bless all."

So, in brief, runs the story of the "Lost Patrol." There have been widely-heralded expeditions to North and South Poles. In their months of outfitting and general preparations, these expeditions left nothing undone to ensure safety that science could devise or money buy. They knew they had the eyes of the world upon them with the consequent urge to worthy endeavour. I wish to take no honour from them, but to me there is something finer in the way brave men in lonely places and at dangerous tasks, in civilian as in military life, risk death continually, not for glory, or fame, or riches, but simply in doing their routine of duty year after year. The world takes little notice, save when some startling tragedy occurs, and then soon forgets.

This story is not told in vain if it will remind Canadians of our own noble fellows, who in the wilds of our far-flung northern boundaries are adventuring their lives in these so-called "common" ways. "Their heroic efforts," says Commissioner Perry, "to return to Fort McPherson, have not been exceeded in the annals of Arctic travel. Corporal Dempster's reports show that the unfortunate men were wasted to shadows. All were strong, powerful, young men, and in the best of health and condition, when they left on their ill-fated journey. It is the greatest tragedy which has occurred in this Force during its existence of thirty-seven years. Their loss has been felt most keenly by every member, but we cannot but feel a thrill of pride at their firm endeavour to carry out their duty, and the subsequent prolonged struggle they made to save their lives."

Brave and gallant gentlemen, I salute you!

XII.

An Edinburgh Lad

The evening of August 7th, 1918, saw the British troops in France massed under cover along a front of many miles, ready for the morning and the grand attack of August 8th which led to our final victory.

Throughout the vast organization of our allied armies, now all under Gen. Foch, gigantic preparations of microscopic thoroughness had been going on for weeks. Our intentions had been most wonderfully hidden from our foes by all the artifices of elaborately developed camouflage. At night the roads of France back of the line were filled with hundreds of thousands of infantrymen marching to their appointed places; with countless batteries of big guns and little guns, and munitions, moving as required by the great secret plan; with lorries, armoured cars, and tanks, pounding along in almost endless succession through the darkness. In the daytime little movement was to be seen beyond what was usual. Artifices, many and varied, were used to trick our foes, such as fake attacks in Flanders by a platoon or two of Canadians left in the north to mislead the enemy, the Canadian troops being then far south. Altogether it seemed that the Germans were left wholly in the dark as to our purposes. It was the largest and most brilliantly arranged venture in the war. Armistice Day testifies how well the plans were carried through.

Our own corps had been slipping by night into a little patch of timber, on the Roye road, called Gentelles wood. We had been gathered there for two days, lying low but so packed in, that, if the enemy artillery had dropped a single shell anywhere in the woods, it would have decimated a battalion. What a chance they missed! Enough to give old Hindenburg the nightmare if he knows of it. It seemed like another direct intervention of Providence. For weeks before, the Germans had shelled these woods, a little, almost every day, but now, at the very time when a few shells would have materially disarranged our plans, something stayed the hands of the gunners and not a single shell or bomb came near us.

On the 7th, as soon as it was dark enough, the tanks, hidden in the brush at the edge of the wood and by hedges at roadsides, commenced to move to their attack positions. Two score must have passed through our battalion bivouac. The leading tank made its own road crashing through the brush, going over ditches and fallen timber, and turning aside only for the large standing trees. Each driver, hidden away in the tank and peering through the small look-out, could see only the lighted end of his officer's cigarette which was used to guide him in the deep darkness of the trees. No other lights were allowed. When they were gone we too moved forward, deploying to our positions in trenches ready for "zero-hour" next day.

The night passed safely, a momentous night, in which the enemy had his last good chance to spoil our plans and save himself from overwhelming defeat. Just before dawn, through the light morning mist, our artillery barrage came down with infernal noise and destructive effect. It told the enemy that we were going to attack. The German batteries of course replied with damaging precision, but it was too late then to save the day. Our guns lengthened range and the tanks went forward. The other fighting units followed and by sunrise the grand attack had been fully launched up and down the whole British and French front. It was an attack that was to continue victoriously for three months, finally forcing the Germans on Nov. 11th to confess themselves well and thoroughly whipped.

In this splendid affair the Canadian Corps had a place of special honor on the extreme right of the British line, and facing the central attack-area beyond Amiens down the Roye road. Of our own battalions the 43rd was on the right flank linking up with the left wing of the French troops. The "liaison platoon" was half Canadian Camerons and half French "poilus." This junction sector would probably be the place of greatest danger to the success of the whole advance, for there, if anywhere, misunderstanding or conflict in orders might occur leading to a dangerous dislocation in the long line of the Allies. We were very proud of the confidence placed in us. The results show that it was not misplaced.

It was a glorious victory. The tanks cleared up the out-lying German defence posts and enabled our machine-gunners and infantry following them, to put their full strength against the main German positions. Before noon the Hun was on the run. We chased him helter-skelter through fields of yellow grain, across meadows, and down dusty roads, cornered and captured hundreds of his men in orchards and chateaux. It was sunny, summer weather in one of the loveliest parts of France. Our success had surpassed expectations and we were still going on. There were "beaucoup souvenirs." The enemy in his hurry had left a litter of stuff behind him, post-cards half-written, tobacco-pipes half-smoked and still warm, shaving brushes with fresh lather on them, breakfasts commenced but finished elsewhere, if ever finished.

On Aug. 11th, three days after the attack our brigade was camped under the trees beside a chateau which had been a German Divisional Headquarters on Aug. 8th, and was now ten miles behind our line. I remember it distinctly for that day, a Sunday, I had preached my farewell sermon to my battalion. I had been inveigled into asking for a recall to England. They said I needed a rest. Perhaps I did, and then at that time you couldn't tell how much longer the war was to last. If I had foreseen an armistice in twelve weeks I should have done differently. So I was to go to Blighty for a few months, my substitute had reported for duty and there was nothing for me to do but go.

A group of men sat around me beneath the trees, as I lingered that afternoon, chatting about odds and ends of things, leaving the subject that, I think, was uppermost in our minds pretty much untouched, for we were all loth to say good-bye. Somehow the talk turned to stories of clever camouflage suggested by some of our recent experiences and the boys told several good yarns. I outlined an old one I had heard my father tell of the arts of camouflage practised by Indians in his own soldier days in Upper Canada. This elicited enquiries about my father, and how he came to be soldiering in Canada so long ago. It was a story I knew well, and so it was easily told. These men were friends of mine, true and tried, and I knew they would understand and fill in from their hearts the simple outline I gave them of my father's life.

* * * * *

Ever since I can remember, Edinburgh has been to me the fairest city in the world. I am Canadian-born, my mother also, but my father was an Edinburgh man, and my earliest memories are filled with word-pictures of that city drawn in warm tones of affection by a home-sick Scot. Many an hour have I sat at my father's feet, as we gathered around the fire of a winter's evening, listening to his stories. He had a wide range of Indian and soldier anecdotes so dear to a boy's heart, but none of them live so clearly in my recollection as those he had to tell of his birth-place. Long before I knew what geography was I had a fairly intimate knowledge of Edinburgh. Calton Hill, Arthur's Seat, Samson's Ribs, Holyrood Palace, High Street and Princes Street, I had the right location and a true picture of them all. When boy-like I would be building forts with blocks or in the sand, they would always be called Edinburgh Castle.

I knew all his stories except one, and that one was his own life. I heard that too, at last, and it came about in this wise. An important registered letter used to come to father quarterly, containing his soldier's pension. Until I was well along in school I was not specially interested in the envelope or its contents, but one day I read the address as it lay near me on the table, and it was "559 Cpl. G. McDonald, R.C.R." Naturally I became curious. My father, George Pringle, was getting George McDonald's letter and money. My father was honest, I never, of course, questioned that. Still it was a puzzle to my boyish mind. He came into the room, saw what I was doing, and so I asked him to tell me about it. "It must look odd to you, my boy," he said, "and I've been waiting until you were old enough to hear and understand the explanation. To-night after supper, if no visitors come, I'll tell you the reason of it." That evening under the lamplight we gathered around his arm-chair and he told his own story.

"Long ago," he said, "when I was a boy, our family were living very happily in what was then one of the best parts of old Edinburgh. My father was a man of substance and gave us all a good schooling and a trade. Of my mother I shall only say that she was to me the most wonderful and the most beautiful woman in the world. I had a twin brother John and we were very much alike in appearance. When we were fourteen years old our mother died. We mourned as only boys of that age can mourn, with deep grief too poignant for words. Within three years father married again. Our stepmother was an excellent woman and kind to us, and I know now my father did right. But we couldn't bear to have anyone else in our own mother's place. Loyal in our love to her we grew embittered towards our father. There were no "words," but when about seventeen years old we ran away from home, tramped south to London, and there, being Edinburgh tradesmen, soon found work. A year or so and then we got an inkling that father had traced us. Determined not to go back we enlisted in the Rifle Brigade and to hide our identity gave our names as John and George McDonald, our mother's maiden name. You see where our hearts were. Within the year our unit left for Canada, and we had been in barracks at Halifax, Nova Scotia, only a few months when we were paraded one day before the commanding officer, Col. Lawrence. He took us into his own room and there he spoke to us as a friend. He had received a letter eloquent with a father's love for his two wandering laddies. Father had traced us by our Christian names, and our likeness to each other. I think, too, the name McDonald, which we thought would baffle him, only made him more certain. Col. Lawrence read the letter aloud to us, and it moved us deeply. Money enough was enclosed to buy our discharge and pay our passage home. The officer urged us to return. At first we were inclined to yield, but some dour devil of bitterness took control of our hearts and we said we would not go, would accept no money, and wished to have no further communication with our father. Such was the unrelenting reply the colonel would have to send back to Edinburgh. How many, many times has remorse punished me for that unkind decision. Yet we blindly thought that love and loyalty to the mother we had lost made it right that we should turn our backs on our father's outstretched arms. We never heard from him again, and we have lost all trace of our relatives in Scotland.

"You can easily construct the rest of my story. After serving some years more we left the army for a time. I was married to your mother, Mary Cowan, at Murray Harbor South, Prince Edward Island. Shortly after we re-enlisted under our army name in the Royal Canadian Rifles, then a newly organized regiment, with which I served until I finally gave up the soldier life, and settled in Galt under my right name. My service was sufficient to get me a medal and a pension. The pension comes addressed as you have seen, and the medal is similarly inscribed. It is the regimental number that identifies me and the money and medal are rightfully mine. But a thousand pensions can never ease my heart of regrets for the suffering we needlessly inflicted on our father who loved us and whom we loved."

* * * * *

This was the homely story told in my father's words to those kiltie lads that summer afternoon under the apple trees in an alien land. They listened and understood, for every true Scottish heart responds to these stories of our own folk and our homeland.

From the lone shieling of the misty island
    Mountains divide them, and a waste of seas,
But still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
    And they in dreams behold the Hebrides.

And it's all the same whether they are from the east coast or the west, the Highlands, or the Islands, or the Borders, city or country-born, the Scot never knows the place Scotland has in his affections until he becomes an exile.

I slipped away after saying farewell, and, with my faithful henchman Macpherson, climbed up on a waiting lorry and was off down the dusty road towards Boulogne, homesick for the men I left behind me.

SEQUEL

It was my privilege to spend the winter of 1919-20 in Edinburgh taking lectures at New College, a glorious year. I had searched the city for traces of my father's people without success, and had almost given up hopes of ever finding them. One day early in the session I was standing in the Common Hall of the college chatting with other students, when one of them named Scott asked me if he might enquire why my father went to Canada, for I had been saying he came from Edinburgh. I gave him a few details and he seemed much interested. Further explanations and his eyes lighted up with excitement. I soon found what caused it. Several eager questions and answers back and forth and I knew that one of my great ambitions had been realized. I had found one of the old Edinburgh Pringles from whom we had been estranged so many years. His mother was a Pringle, the daughter of an older brother of my father's. It was one of the supreme occasions of my life. In our hand-clasp in that college hall under the shadow of the Castle, the separation of nearly a century was ended. Some of you can guess how deeply I was stirred. Fancy or fact, I was certain he had my father's voice and eyes. We opened our hearts to each other and it was pleasant talk. I had reason to be proud of my new-found cousin. He was then assistant-minister in one of the noblest of Edinburgh's many fine churches, "Chalmer's Territorial United Free," commonly called "The West Port." My first sermon in my father's city was preached from his pulpit, and in it I could not forbear telling the congregation of the strange and happy meeting with their minister.

XIII.

Last Chance

For three months in the fall of 1918 I served with the 1st Canadian Tanks. Canada had two tank battalions organized late in the war. Neither of them had the good fortune to get to France. The first was composed of volunteer recruits drawn largely from the Universities of Ontario and Quebec, and they were a remarkably keen lot of soldiers. Quite a number of the officers belonged to the faculties of these colleges and many of the men were graduates or undergraduates.

After arrival from Canada they were under canvas for a week or two at Rhyll in Wales, but soon moved into permanent quarters on the Bovington farm in Dorset county. Bovington was a great tank camp. A number of Imperial tank units along with ours were located there for training, with large machine-shops and many auxiliary units. The country immediately around the huts swarmed with soldiers and "herds" of noisy tanks.

I joined the battalion for duty about mid-August and stayed with them until after the Armistice. Those were very happy weeks. Everyone was good to me. Besides I had just come from the turmoil of France, and the quaint, quiet, pastoral beauty of Dorset seemed a haven of peace. I had pleasant times in camp. Then there were exhilarating walks to take with my good friends, Somerville, Smith, Macfarlane, Bobbie Kerr and others, over the downs through miles of purple heather, and along deep hedge-lined country roads to some old-fashioned thatch-roofed village, where we would have tea and a rest before returning. Or of a morning we would walk down the six miles to Lulworth Cove on the coast, three miles of our journey between hedges of giant rhododendron, with the limbs of oak, pine and beech trees forming a leafy arch over our heads. At the Cove hotel we would enjoy one of their famous boiled-lobster dinners, with potatoes, water-cress and lettuce, and a rice-custard dessert. Dorset, too, is a country filled with stirring, historic association recalling frequent battles fought against sea-borne invaders, and many also were the smugglers' stories we heard of this shore so near to France and so filled with coves and caves. There is romance as well as adventure. Thomas Hardy found inspiration in the Dorset folklore for his masterpiece, "Tess of the D'Urbervilles." The most imposing castle-ruin I have seen is there, Corfe Castle, visible for miles against the sky. It recalls fierce attack and prolonged siege in the days of Cavalier and Roundhead.

By the beginning of November the battalion was through its training, taking in its written examinations the highest marks in the camp. Soon after came the eagerly-awaited order to mobilize for France. In a few days we had our lorries parked, our kits ready, our fighting "colors" up on our tunics, and our final letters from England sent off home. The day was set, I think Nov. 14th, for our embarkation at a channel port for France.

They would have done great deeds in battle these fine bright lads, but they were not to be given the opportunity. Nov. 11th, 1918, was a dismal day for the Canadian Tank Corps. At eleven o'clock the order, "Cease fire," sounded along our whole line in France and the Armistice emerged into history, blasting their hopes of active service. On a Sunday following I had to preach a sermon of rejoicing to the battalion. It was a parade service so that I had a congregation of 900 men who gave me a perfect hearing, but all the same the sermon was a failure. I knew it would be even if I had been eloquent, and in my heart I was glad that these Canadian boys could not rejoice with me. They were disgusted with their fate. Another day or two and they would have got to France, and that would have been something, even if they hadn't been fortunate enough to get into battle.

From their standpoint it was no occasion for hilarity. They fired no guns, they beat no drums, and generally were a very gloomy-looking lot of fellows. I am enough of a barbarian to like them all the better for it. Later in the week I tried to relieve the situation a little for some of them by telling in the rest-hut one evening what I knew of the naming of one of the famous Klondike creeks.

* * * * *

There is a well-known creek in the North called Last Chance and I shall try to tell you something of its story. It may help you to feel that while you missed the real fighting in France there's still lots of chance of adventure in life for you all. Last Chance is a tributary of Hunker Creek, fifteen miles in the hills back of Dawson. In the rush days a road-house was put up there and named after the creek. Later it was assumed that the creek had got its name from the road-house, and this had been so named because it was the "last chance to get a drink" outward bound on that trail. But here's the real story.

"Old Yank" was the man who gave the creek its name. He was a gambler of that kind who go out into the wilds among giant mountain-peaks, and in far-off, unnamed valleys alone with their pick-axe, shovel, and gold-pan stake their lives on the chance that there is gold in rock or gravel. Who can quarrel with such gambling? There are no marked cards in that game. If they win they win clean, and if they lose, well they've lived a glorious, free life filled with health, hope, and work without a master, and the companionship of a few choice friends.

The old man had come to the time when he knew that shortly his prospecting days would be ended. Then he would land in some Old Man's Home unless he could make a clean-up soon and have enough to save him from that baleful finish. He had made several "stakes" when he was younger in the southern mountains, but he had either thrown his wealth away in the purchase or development of worthless claims, on further prospecting expeditions, or had lost it in a gold camp where he had been fleeced by some of the various kinds of human vultures which always flocked to the gold-diggings, when they proved rich, to prey upon the miners.

He told me a story of how once in the early days in the Caribou he was sitting in a card game with a number of strangers. He had lost half his spring clean-up to them when the police raided the road-house and took them all "in" to stand trial before Judge Begbie. Begbie was a man noted for his swift, stern methods and his keen penetration in court. He didn't interfere with what he called "square" card gambling among a group of miners, but he was a terror to the professional card-sharper. Next day every man pleaded that he was a working miner and had just come in from the hills. Where all were dressed alike in rough clothes it seemed impossible to decide who were telling the truth. Begbie never hesitated. "Show me the palms of your hands," he said, and the constable made them line up with their hands held up, palms out. The judge inspected them rapidly, ordered two men detained and dismissed the others. Those released had callouses on their hands that you can get only by the use of pick and shovel. The two detained, questioned, and sent to penitentiary in New Westminster were soft-handed.

When I first met Yank the sinews of his right hand were so drawn up and stiffened by the jar of the pick through years of work that he could not open his hand. The way he got his fingers around the pick-handle was by shoving the end of it in with his left hand through the curve of thumb and forefinger on his right.

He was busy prospecting in a valley near the Klondike at the time those wonderful gold-fields were discovered. He was only a divide or two away. A squaw-man passing with three Indians on his way to the mouth of the Klondike to fish salmon had stopped a day with him. He advised the man to "pan" here and there, where there was rim-rock showing, as they went along in the creek-bottoms. He himself was getting light prospects and it might be better closer in to the Klondike basin. He asked and was promised that, if they struck anything good, one of them would come back and let him know. They followed his advice and found rich pay on Rabbit Creek, but they failed to keep their promise to the old man whose advice had so enriched them. Yank never knew of the Klondike stampede, until the next year when two strangers, who had got lost, wandered into his valley and told him the amazing news. He put on his pack and left forthwith but he was too late. Hundreds of men from Stewart and Forty-Mile were now located on the best ground and the stream of stampeding "cheechacos" from the outside world was already commencing to flood in. There was nothing left that he thought worth staking. He crossed the ridge from Rabbit Creek, (now called Bonanza), with a heavy heart, heading back to his lonely cabin. Off the divide he came into a narrow gulch which he followed. It widened into a good-sized valley. He was surprised as he went along to see neither cabins nor claim-stakes. He travelled its whole length indeed and found none. Although right in the rich region it had been overlooked. When he got to the mouth of the gulch he saw why, in those first days of hurried staking it had been left untouched, for the valley narrowed into a very small opening where it entered the larger Hunker creek. The stampeders passing up and down Hunker would rarely see the scarcely noticeable break in the hills hidden by the trees, or if they saw it would not think it worth exploring. He lost no time in going back up the creek to the wider part. There he put down a hole near the rim where it was only a few feet to bed-rock and found excellent prospects. He now set about staking Discovery claim. With his axe he cut, about five feet from the ground, a smooth four-inch face on four sides of a small tree in the centre of the valley, and then pencilled on the down-stream side this inscription, "No. 1 Post. Discovery claim. I, Joe. Chronister, claim fifteen hundred feet down-stream, and from base to base, for placer mining purposes," signed his name with date and hour, and the number of his miner's certificate. Then he stepped off five hundred paces roughly downstream through the brush and then "blazed" his second tree as before, marking it, "No. 2 Post, Discovery claim," and writing as on No. 1, with "down-stream" changed to "up-stream."

He camped that night on his claim, and before he lay down on his spruce-bough bed to sleep, he sat awhile by the dying fire dreaming old dreams again. Perhaps this time it would be very rich; it prospected fine but "prospects" were only prospects. "Well," he mused, "old-timer, you're near the end of the game. If there's nothing good under the muck here it will be 'over the hill to the poorhouse' for you. It's your last chance, last chance."

It was with this thought running through his mind that next day he entered the recording office in Dawson, with his good friend the stalwart Capt. Jim McLeod at his side to see that he got square treatment, and recorded discovery on his creek which was named on the government records, "Last Chance," at his request.

It is good to know that Yank's claim was rich. Providence had been kind to the old man. He saved his clean-ups and lived in comfort the rest of his days in a snug log-cabin in Dawson, near the wild waters of the turbulent Klondike, where they rush into the depths of the mighty Yukon.

XIV.

A Moose Hunt

It was my good fortune to be in London on "leave" the day the Armistice was signed. At 11 o'clock in the morning the multitude of giant "siren" whistles, used for warning the approach of enemy air-craft, broke into a wild chorus of deafening howls, and Londoners knew that Germany, the aggressor, had accepted the lowly seat of the vanquished. The sounds of public rejoicing commenced immediately and by the late afternoon the celebration was in full swing. It was a celebration in which I could not be content with a spectator's part. I entered into it with all my heart. The whole outburst, for the first day at least, was the spontaneous and natural expression of joy at a glad release from the curse of war, which had lain heavily upon the Old Land for four long, black, bitter years.

I then started out early in the evening, mingling with the immense crowds down Southampton Row and Kingsway to the Strand, along to Trafalgar Square, then up to Piccadilly, and home after midnight by way of Regent and Oxford Streets. All those great thoroughfares and squares were filled from side to side with whirlpools of people. Everywhere were groups of dancers or singers, all sorts of foolish processions big and little, all sorts of bands, noisemakers and fireworks. Workmen standing on ladders, surrounded by thousands of madly cheering observers, were taking the light-shields off the street-lamps. This meant that London streets would be lighted for the first time since 1914. In the immense moving crowds huge circles would form as if by magic, then everyone in it, all strangers to one another, would join hands and dance up and down, and in and out, to some old song. I got into one of these happy groups by chance in front of Nelson's monument in Trafalgar Square, where we all danced up to the centre and back singing, "Here we go gathering nuts in May," and then commenced to circle round to the chorus of "Ring-a-ring-a-rosy." We were just like a throng of happy children at a picnic. Then the formation dissolved, and its members disappeared into the singing, shouting, noisy crowds.

I fell in with an English officer, and he and I joined forces with an English bugler wearing an Australian soldier's hat. He had lost his own cap and had picked this one up somewhere. We three marched along arm-in-arm; the bugler would blow a call, then pass the bugle to us and we would each make some hideous noises upon it. I had my Cameron glengarry on and as we crushed along with the crowd, every now and then, out of the clamor, I could hear voices calling to me, "Well done, Jock," "Good old Scotty." Don't think we were at all conspicuous, for nearly everyone was doing things quite as foolish. We felt compelled to shout, cheer, sing, or do something to express our overflowing joy that the war was past at long last. These people of the Old Country knew the deep tragedy, the terrible heart-breaking, nerve-racking strain of the war as Canada could not know it. "It was meet that they should make merry and be glad." I saw practically no drinking nor roughness. It was a remarkable demonstration free, that night, from all the artificiality of pre-arrangement.

Next day I attended the Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul's Cathedral. The King and Queen were there and many personages of note, but it was common folk who filled the vast building and crowded the streets for blocks around. There was no sermon. There could not have been any sermon or preacher adequate to such an occasion. The fortieth chapter of Isaiah was read, and how mystically and beautifully it expressed our thoughts, short prayers were said, and then the people stood up to sing, led by a great military massed band and the Cathedral organ. The instrumental music alone was enough to thrill one's soul, but when those thousands joined, with heart and voice, in melodious thanksgiving to God for release from the abundant travail of the bitter years, filling the glorious old temple full with a glad tumultuous harmony, the effect was indescribable. Hundreds were so moved they could find no voice for song, and could only lift their faces to heaven with tears of joy running down their cheeks. In all the history of the Empire there never was a moment when the whole British people were so stirred and held by such high and tense emotion. The glad, loud song of thankfulness had also the minor note vibrant with sorrow, there was the echo of a sob in it. This great nation, rejoicing in righteous victory, kept sad and sacred memories of her million slain.

While in London for these few wonderful days I stayed at the West Central Hotel, and there, one afternoon later in the week, I was delighted to meet an old "tillicum" of the trails, Tom Patton. For three rare days we companied together and talked about old friends and other days. We revelled in memories of the glorious years we spent together in the far-off northland. In imagination we travelled again many a well-known mile, and memorable experiences we had in common were recalled. I was sorry when the last day of my leave came, for Patton was one of the very best of my old Yukon friends and "there are no friends like the old friends after all." That last evening three other old Klondikers, whom we had discovered in London, foregathered with us in my room and enjoyed a Yukon evening. There were many interesting stories told that night. Each had his own contribution, and there were some yarns in whose spinning we all lent a hand. There was one in which Patton and I had equal share, one I had often told to my comrades in France to while away a weary hour. It described a hunting trip up the Yukon river he and I took one fall to get some wild-fowl. We ran on bigger game and that is why I call it a Moose Hunt.

* * * * *

In 1906, late in the autumn, when every night brought sharp frost, and fish and fowl were heading for the sea and the south to escape the icy-fingers of on-coming winter, Patton and I planned a fortnight's holiday up the Yukon to shoot ducks.

We hired a rowboat at Dawson, and put it aboard a river steamboat on which we had taken passage up-stream about a hundred miles to the mouth of White River. There the steamer slowed up enough to let us launch our boat and get into it with our outfit, leaving us then on the great river to our own devices.

We decided to make camp immediately for it was getting on in the day. So we pulled across to the left bank, tied up our boat, and commenced to look about us. I noticed a well-marked trail in the brush which I followed for a few yards and came on a cabin. I knocked at the door and it was quickly opened by the occupant. I told him who I was and he asked me in. The place was dark, dirty, and smelly, nor was I taken with the man's personal appearance, for his hair was long and tangled, and his face almost hidden by an untrimmed beard. His welcome was genuine, however, and when I grew accustomed to the dim candle-light I noticed that he had clear, kindly eyes. He was glad to see me. I was his first visitor in three months. He had staked some gold-bearing rock, and there he had lived alone for a year trying to uncover it enough to prove it a real ledge, and to prospect it sufficiently so that he might interest "capital" in it. He had absolute faith in the value of his find, talking with assurance of the day when he would sell it for thousands.

I informed him that I had a partner and called to Patton who came along. We told him what we were out for. He advised us to stay the night there, and in the early morning we would be sure to get some sport in the marshes, ponds, and slack-water where the White joins the Yukon. He wouldn't hear of us making camp for ourselves, and we had to accept his hospitality. He was very lonely, he said, and it did him a whole lot of good to see us and have some talk.

Late in the afternoon we went out to examine the ground and arrange our morning shoot. We heard a strange noise coming from beyond the distant northern skyline of the river valley. It sounded like the far-off cackling of barn-yard geese. Soon the source of it appeared in the north. It was the advance guard of a great flight of sandhill cranes on their journey to the south coast. They are toothsome birds, about the size of a small turkey but standing higher. They are very shy and it is all but impossible to get them within range of a shot-gun. I am not exaggerating when I say that they flew for two hours in a continuous, clamorous stream of arrow-shaped formations from our northern horizon, until they disappeared from view over the southern hills. There were thousands of them in that one contingent.

The old-timer, "Alabama Bill" he was called, served for supper that night a meat-stew composed of porcupine, moose-meat and other things. I ate my share and kept it. Patton is more sensitive that way than I am, and on this occasion he proved traitor to the good old British maxim, "What we have, we hold." I don't blame him. One had need of keen appetite and strong digestion to enjoy and profit by that mysterious mixture. "Alabama" made us talk far on into the morning, but at last we rolled into our bunks. We slept uneasily for various causes, and were glad to get out in the early morning to be ready in position for daylight and our birds.