reat as was the city's outward change, its change of spirit was
still greater. The day of dance-hall domination was over. Vice walked
very circumspectly. No longer was it possible on the street to speak to
a lady of easy virtue without causing comment.

The demireps of the deadline had been banished over the Klondike, where,
in a colony reached by a crazy rope bridge, their red lights gleamed
like semaphores of sin. The dance-halls were still running, but the
picturesque impunity of the old muckluck days was gone forever. You
looked in vain for the crude scenes where the wilder passions were
unleashed, and human nature revealed itself in primal nakedness.
Heroism, brutality, splendid achievement, unbridled license, the North
seems to bring out all that is best and worst in a man. It breeds an
exuberant vitality, a madness for action, whether it be for good or
evil.

In the town, too, life was becoming a thing of more sober hues. Sick of
slipshod morality, men were sending for their wives and children. The
old ideals of home and love and social purity were triumphing. With the
advent of the good woman, the dance-hall girl was doomed. The city was
finding itself. Society divided into sets. The more pretentious were
called Ping-pongs, while a majority rejoiced in the name of Rough-necks.
The post-office abuses were remedied, the grafters ousted from the
government offices. Rapidly the gold-camp was becoming modernised.

Yes, its spectacular days were over. No more would the "live one"
disport himself in his wild and woolly glory. The delirium of '98 was
fast becoming a memory. The leading actors in that fateful drama--where
were they? Dead: some by their own hands; down and out many, drivelling
sottishly of by-gone days; poor prospectors a few, dreaming of a new
gold strike.

And, as I think of it, it comes over me that the thing is vastly tragic.
Where are they now, these Klondike Kings, these givers of champagne
baths, these plungers of the gold-camp? How many of those that stood out
in the limelight of '98 can tell the tale to-day? Ladue is dead, leaving
little behind. Big Alec MacDonald, after lavishing a dozen fortunes on
his friends, dies at last, almost friendless and alone. Nigger Jim and
Stillwater Willie--in what back slough of vicissitude do they languish
to-day? Dick Low lies in a drunkard's grave. Skookum Jim would fain
qualify for one. Dawson Charlie, reeling home from a debauch, drowns in
the river. In i