yes on Indian River. The creeks that drain
that side the Klondike watershed are just as likely to have gold as the
creeks that drain this side."

And he backed this opinion to the extent of grub-staking half a dozen
parties of prospectors across the big divide into the Indian River
region. Other men, themselves failing to stake on lucky creeks, he put
to work on his Bonanza claims. And he paid them well--sixteen dollars
a day for an eight-hour shift, and he ran three shifts. He had grub to
start them on, and when, on the last water, the Bella arrived loaded
with provisions, he traded a warehouse site to Jack Kearns for a supply
of grub that lasted all his men through the winter of 1896. And that
winter, when famine pinched, and flour sold for two dollars a pound, he
kept three shifts of men at work on all four of the Bonanza claims.
Other mine-owners paid fifteen dollars a day to their men; but he had
been the first to put men to work, and from the first he paid them a
full ounce a day. One result was that his were picked men, and they
more than earned their higher pay.

One of his wildest plays took place in the early winter after the
freeze-up. Hundreds of stampeders, after staking on other creeks than
Bonanza, had gone on disgruntled down river to Forty Mile and Circle
City. Daylight mortgaged one of his Bonanza dumps with the Alaska
Commercial Company, and tucked a letter of credit into his pouch. Then
he harnessed his dogs and went down on the ice at a pace that only he
could travel. One Indian down, another Indian back, and four teams of
dogs was his record. And at Forty Mile and Circle City he bought
claims by the score. Many of these were to prove utterly worthless, but
some few of them were to show up more astoundingly than any on Bonanza.
He bought right and left, paying as low as fifty dollars and as high as
five thousand. This highest one he bought in the Tivoli Saloon. It
was an upper claim on Eldorado, and when he agreed to the price, Jacob
Wilkins, an old-timer just returned from a look at the moose-pasture,
got up and left the room, saying:--

"Daylight, I've known you seven year, and you've always seemed sensible
till now. And now you're just letting them rob you right and left.
That's what it is--robbery. Five thousand for a claim on that damned
moose-pasture is bunco. I just can't stay in the room and see you
buncoed that way."

"I tell you-all," Daylight answered, "Wilkins, Carmack