"Perhaps not; but they will let me have the water out of the tributaries if I can turn it back before it reaches Bonanza Creek."

On the morrow George and he visited the famous--or infamous--seat of the Head over the mining industry. They found the Gold Commissioner's office a log building of no great dimensions near the police-barracks. A waiting crowd was lined before the door. A policeman standing near the office entrance directed John, who wished merely to get a copy of the regulations governing the taking up of quartz claims, to ask at the wicket inside.

He entered. As he stood waiting his turn he overheard a miner, evidently a Scandinavian, applying for a claim.

"This claim is already applied for," said the official.

"But, mister, there vos not a stake on it ven I staked it."

"I don't care! It is applied for. Next!"

"Can't I see the Commissioner?"

"No; he's busy. Next!"

"Say! mister, this is my claim."

"Next!"

Poor Ole was shoved aside by the crowd. He had waited through the weary night to gain a hearing, and now ethereal castles came toppling down!

As soon as John had obtained a copy of the regulations he and George Bruce set off to the hill of promise, each to take up a quartz claim.

They staked their claims, and then followed the ridge down to Bonanza Creek. They found that the rounded end of the ridge overlooking the creek was admirably suited as the site of a quartz mill.

"George," said his companion, "I don't think my right will be of any other use to me. I shall take up a claim here under the placer laws, and I think you had better do the same." So each of them staked a placer claim.

Instead of returning by the way they had come, the inclination to return by the creek trail was too strong to be resisted. They would be forced to wade through numerous bog-holes; but what of that? Down the hill they scrambled, and came to a sudden halt amid the full activity of some mining operations. A gang of men were working over a line of sluice-boxes, with a big fellow, standing on a pile of rocks, superintending. The water was shut off from running through the sluices.

The men had lifted the riffles out of the dump-box, and the gleam of nuggets and dust was plainly visible.

"It looks good."

"It ought to be, after three days' shovelling in on discovery," answered the superintendent, who flashed a keen glance at the new-comers.

"Is this discovery?"

"That's what I endeavoured to enunciate."

"Do you object to our watching the clean-up?"

"Not that I knows of. I s'pose the gold ain't going to evaporate 'cause you look at it. But where do you come from? Are you miners?"

"We are."

"Do you want a job? Give you ten dollars and board."

"No, we have just staked claims--quartz claims on the ridge up there--and intend working them."

"Quartz! this country is full of quartz. There ain't nothing in it; see all the quartz in the wash here?" and the foreman pointed to the white pebbles among the rocks on which he was standing. "You can crack these all day and never find a colour."

"Where does the gold come from if it does not come from the quartz?"

"Where does it come from?--just grows, I guess. Gold is like potatoes in this country. It was over there, just under the bluff, that Carmack made discovery. He found a bunch of high-grade pay in the creek bottom and worked it out; and then he had to go twenty feet through the muck to bed-rock before he got the real thing. Now, how did the gold get on top of the muck where Carmack first found it? There has not been a good-sized colour found above bed-rock on any other claim on the creek.

I tell you if you try to figure where gold in this country comes from, you'll go bughouse before you find out. Gold is where you find it. It's a blooming conundrum. Take me; I came up here and could have staked in on Eldorado. Well, I couldn't find a colour in the creek; but what I could see was a sign stuck up readin', 'This creek is reserved for Swedes and Moose.' Now, I weren't a Swede, and I sure weren't a Moose!

So I pa.s.ses her up. What happens? Why, a lot of fools take her up and she's the richest ground in the country. Nice, ain't it!--and me working for wages?"

"Well, how do you know I won't strike it rich on my quartz claim?"

"You may, stranger, you may; I've given up calling people fools for having different notions from me. Hope you will!"

They found the trail as bad as it had been described to them. It did indeed make the "slough of despond" look like the rocky road to Dublin.

Few men they met but had some humorous remark to make; and there is probably no toil greater than wading, with pack on back, from stump to stone, from stone to stump, in the course of that desperate journey.

Humour was the saving grace; it was an effective barrier against despair. Occasionally men were met, blaspheming, cursing the land, the gold, the Government, but generally it was humour which made the path pa.s.sable.

A led horse waded into a bog-hole. He stopped, and seemed to hesitate.

"Throw a stick at him," shouted the man leading him to another who walked behind. A stick was thrown. The horse plunged, and the bog being deeper than the men had imagined, was more in the mire. "Keep him going, it's the only way to save him," was shouted. Stick after stick was hurled at the struggling animal, which became more and more bemired. It gave up the struggle. The report of a rifle soon after told that the horse was dead.

CHAPTER XIX

GRAFT

John and his fellow prospector were working with hammer and drill on their quartz claims, three weeks after they had staked them, when Hugh Spencer and Corte paid them a first visit. Hugh scrutinized the quartz his friends had mined.

"Well, this is poverty rock, for sure; why don't you quit it?"

"That's what we've been thinking lately," George confessed; "but what shall we do--go to work for wages?"

"Better earn ten dollars a day than get nothing here after blowing in your money buying grub and powder; but why not take a chance in the new stampede to Australia Creek, that runs into Dominion Creek on the Indian River side of the Divide? That's what we hunted you up for."

John and George gazed at one another. Not a word was said. John walked to the tent and began taking it down. Four packs were made of the camp and the equipment, and the party, well-loaded, returned to Dawson. So John pa.s.sed from a place of many dreams.

Hugh had already made his plans.

"Australia Creek is already taken up," he said, "and, besides, it is too far away. It's two days' trip out there, about sixty miles. My idea is to hunt up a creek for ourselves. I hear the grafters in the Gold Commissioner's office already refuse applications on the grounds that the creek is all applied for. There was some sort of a row in the office when the discoverers came in to record. Things is getting pretty bad when even a discoverer is refused a record!"

"He, he! it's about time for Uncle Sam to come along," chaffed Frank, exploiting once more his set theory.

The party reached the home-camp, deposited their loads, and pa.s.sed on into the town to make purchases for their projected trip. As they pa.s.sed up the main street they saw a crowd collected, yelling itself hoa.r.s.e.

Revolvers were being fired in the air, and a frenzy of pa.s.sion seemed to govern a number of individuals. A man, wild of eye, and with a disordered beard, came running down the street.

" ... man Dooey (Dewey) has knocked h.e.l.l out of the Spaniards at Manilla!" he shouted.

Frank gave a c.o.c.k-crow, and was off at a dive into the crowd, where a man, standing on a pile of lumber, was reading a newspaper. He would read a line, then yell and wave the paper over his head. He would again and again return to the headlines and shout them out. "Biggest sea battle since Trafalgar!"--yells--cheers--revolver shots!--"Dooey ranks with Nelson!"--more uproar!--"Rebels cut the cables, but the _Eye-Opener_ gets account by special dispatch boat!"