f his train were all sober and given to honestly doing their work, then
the halter or rope around the neck of a mule could be tied to the tail
of the one preceding him, and so on again until they were all really
hitched together tandem. But woe unto the poor brute who was followed by
a balky fellow or a shirk! The consequences were, at times, under
certain circumstances, almost too serious to be recounted in this story,
at least this can be said of the emphatic language used by the packers
in such predicament.

One warm, bright day soon after my arrival in Dawson, and when order had
been brought out of chaos in the scow--our home--I went to call upon an
old friend, formerly of Seattle. Carrie N. was three or four years
younger than myself, had been a nurse for a time after the death of her
husband, but grew tired of that work, and decided in the winter of 1897
and 1898 to go into the Klondyke. A party of forty men and women going
to Dawson was made up in Seattle, and she joined them. For weeks they
were busily engaged in making their preparations. Living near me, as she
did at the time, I was often with Carrie N. and was much interested in
her movements and accompanied her to the Alaska steamer the day she
sailed. It was the little ship "Alki" upon which she went away, and it
was crowded with passengers and loaded heavily with freight for the trip
to Dyea, as Skagway and the dreaded White Pass had been voted out of the
plans of the Seattle party of forty.

[Illustration: GOING TO DAWSON IN WINTER.]

Now in Dawson I called upon Carrie N. eighteen months later, and heard
her tell the story of her trip to the Klondyke. They had landed, she
said, at Dyea from the "Alki" with their many tons of provisions and
supplies, all of which had to be dumped upon the beach where no dock or
wharf had ever been constructed. Here with dog-teams and sleds, a few
horses and men "packers," their supplies were hauled up the mountain as
far as "Sheep Camp," some ten miles up the mountain side. It was early
springtime and the snow lay deep upon the mountains and in the gorges,
which, in the vicinity of Chilkoot Pass at the summit of the mountain
are frightfully high and precipitous.

The weather was not cold, and the moving of this large party of forty
persons with their entire outfit was progressing as favorably as could
be expected. A camp had been made at Dyea as the base of operations;
another was made at Sheep Camp. At each place the w