had to go further afield to find
camping-ground. And they were arriving in thousands daily. The shore for
a mile was lined five deep with boats. Scows had been hauled high and
dry on the gravel, and there the owners were living. A thousand stoves
were eloquent of beans and bacon. I met a man taking home a prize, a
porterhouse steak. He was carrying it over his arm like a towel, paper
was so scarce. The camp was a hive of energy, a hum of occupation.

But how many, after they had paraded that mile-long street with its mud,
its seething foam of life, its blare of gramophones and its blaze of
dance-halls, ached for their southland homes again! You could read the
disappointment in their sun-tanned faces. Yet they were the eager
navigators of the lakes, the reckless amateurs of the rivers. This was a
something different from the trail. It was as if, after all their
efforts, they had butted up against a stone wall. There was "nothing
doing," no ground left, and only hard work, the hardest on earth.

Moreover, the country was at the mercy of a gang of corrupt officials
who were using the public offices for their own enrichment. Franchises
were being given to the favourites of those in power, concessions sold,
liquor permits granted, and abuses of every kind practised on the free
miner. All was venality, injustice and exaction.

"Go home," said the Man in the Street; "the mining laws are rotten. All
kinds of ground is tied up. Even if you get hold of something good, them
dam-robber government sharks will flim-flam you out of it. There's no
square deal here. They tax you to mine; they tax you to cut a tree; they
tax you to sell a fish; pretty soon they'll be taxing you to breathe. Go
home!"

And many went, many of the trail's most indomitable. They could face
hardship and danger, the blizzards, the rapids, nature savage and
ravening; but when it came to craft, graft and the duplicity of their
fellow men they were discouraged, discomfited.

"Say, boys, I guess I've done a slick piece of work," said the Prodigal
with some satisfaction, as he entered the tent. "I've bought three whole
outfits on the beach. Got them for twenty-five per cent. less than the
cost price in Seattle. I'll pull out a hundred per cent. on the deal.
Now's the time to get in and buy from the quitters. They so soured at
the whole frame-up they're ready to pull their freights at any moment.
All they want's to get away. They want to put a few thousand miles