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Show 113 head. A white silence f i l l e d the room. "Come on k i d s , " he said, motioning to us. "Let's go." We grabbed our moose steaks with our napkins and followed the ragged old man out the swinging doors. After that we were called Crazy Caribou' s kids • We did not mind at a l l. We moved in the unfinished cabin with Crazy Caribou Clyde Hartwell. He wasn't really crazy. He was an unemployed music-store clerk from Seattle, Washington. He had been one of the f i r st to reach the Yukon the summer of 1897 before the food requirement. Consequently, he had nearly starved that f i r s t winter. Scurvy had sapped his strength and taken his teeth. Also his partner. He was twenty-nine years old, but he looked about ninety-nine to me. Caribou needed a partner for shaft mining, and he needed supplies and grub. Tip and I needed a cabin for winter and definitely a larger claim. We agreed to pool a l l we had, bring up the gold, and the following summer head for the Outside-dragging our gold with us. "There's one thing I want to do as soon as I get Outside," I ventured. "What's that?" Caribou asked. |