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Show 57 Mackinaw coat and cap, and he carried a large pack on his back like all the others. Eut those con men were hard to recognize, I nudged Tip and nodded toward the door. "Let's hit the trail," I whispered. "Our friend here may have feathers in his pack." As we were leaving Sheep Camp on our last relay, Tip said she had an errand to do. "You can go ahead if you want," she said. "I'll catch up." "I'll wait," I said. I watched her go down the crooked street to the hospital tent, and I knew she was inquiring about her mother. "I wanted to know if I would ever need to come back to this place," she told me. "Doctor Jones said he had sent her body back to Dyea to be buried there. Someday I'll go back to Dyea. I will never come back here." She walked ahead quickly so I would not see her tears. From Sheep Camp we packed three miles to The Scales, a flat shelf at the very base of the pass. Here the Chilkoot packers reweighed their loads on huge primitive scales and doubled their prices. Now, at last, they had something to smile about. It was a steep, difficult climb on packed snow to The Scales. Each morning Tip and I squeezed in the endless dark line of stampeders and plodded upward. It took fifteen days to get my supplies there. |