d caribou.
September is the best time to go in there, but it would take
about a month, and a fellow would have to be careful not to
get caught in the snow. The Mount McKinley country is even
better as a big-game place, so they tell me. I wish we boys
could go in there some time.

"They used to get all kinds of money in here in the early
days. This same gentleman told me he once had an interest in
a claim where they took out $430,000 on a fraction of a
claim which was only eighty feet by four hundred. He says
the dredge people have found that they can work much poorer
dirt than eight dollars a yard, which would pay a
shovel-man. One man can only rock about two and a half yards
a day. He can sluice about twice that. A dredge, working
four men, works from 2,400 to 3,000 tons a day. So you see
why dredges are in here now. He said nearly all the men who
got rich easy lost their money. There was a lucky Swede who
married an extravagant woman, and she spent all his
money--several hundred thousand dollars--right away; but he
only laughed and said, 'I'll strike it again pretty soon.'
But he never has. He says there were a good many hundreds of
men who held on to their stakes and went out with 50,000 to
100,000 dollars each. It must have been exciting times in
this little old town! Very quiet now.

"All the pictures of Dawson show the big white scar on a
mountain-side where a landslip took off the whole side of
the mountain many years ago. The Indians say it buried a
village at its foot. This big hole in the mountain is right
where you can see it down the street. You can't help seeing
it if you go to Dawson.

"I was much interested about the first man who discovered
this country. They don't all tell the same story about it.
The Yukon Territory and Alaska are so much alike, and the
people settling them have been so much alike, that it seems
they are about the same. We crossed the international
boundary between them away back at Rampart House. From
there to here, on both sides of that line, men have been
coming into this country, no one knows how long.

"Jack McQueston, so Mr. Ogilvie says in his book about the
Yukon country, established Fort Reliance, six miles below
where Dawson is, in 1871. Then Arthur Harper came in and