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Show 100 "Then what?" I asked. "They all come creeping back. Once"-he chuckled-"once some eager stampeders began staking Dawson City. All over private property. People found stakes pounded on their doorsteps and in their privies. The Mounted Police had to put a stop to it." "Still," he continued, "you never know. That's how Bonanza and Eldorado started-and the golden hills." He paused for breath. "You just have to keep your ears open-and then run." "By the way," he added, "have you seen our cabin mate-the one on the bottom bunk?" For a moment I thought maybe he was a con man, and my heart sank. He looked lean and desperate. But so did everyone else. I was still having trouble telling the cons from the regulars. "I saw him on the Chilkoot Trail," I said. "Seems he was in the feather business. I think he turned back." I decided Sam was regular because he said, "Too bad." "Yes," Tip said, indicating the piles of goods for sale all over the muddy waterfront, "your old friend would have loved it here." Most of the latecomers, without ever seeing the gold fields, had put all their supplies up for sale, hoping to make enough money to return home on the first steamer coming in from the Bering Sea. |
