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Show 97 lucky few who managed to reach there early in the autumn of 1897 before winter set in. "What went wrong?" Tip asked, stomping her muddy boots on the boardwalk. 'We were pacing the raised boardwalks of Front Street, our hands deep in our pant pockets, our shoulders hunched as if we were freezing cold in July. We were trying to blame someone, as were the other disillusioned men shuffling at our side. "Hang the Mounties!" someone shouted. "Hang the press!" "Try President McKinley and the Spanish-American War!" There was gold in Dawson City. It was piled high in the back rooms of the trading-company stores, waiting the arrival of steamers from the Outside. Klondike kings flashed it as they paraded up and down Front Street with dance-hall girls on their arms and bottles of champagne in their pockets. It was tossed over mahogany counters and rolled onto green felt gambling tables. And it was thrown at the pretty legs of the dance-hall girls. Tip and I stopped in front of the Pioneer Saloon, listening to one of those new ragtime melodies pounded out on a honky-tonk piano. "There's no one to blame, Tip," I said. "There never is. lou just play your own trick back on everyone." |
