while the engine was being repaired.

It was now getting dark, and as it was pretty evident that the
repairs on the boat would take a large part of the night, we camped
where we were. The talkative lady, whom the irreverent called "the
glass front," occupied a tent which belonged to the captain of the
launch and the rest of us made our beds down under the big trees.

A big fire was built and around this we sat, doing more or less
talking. There was an old Tennesseean in the party from Dawson, who
talked interminably. He told us of his troubles, trials, and
victories in Dawson: how he had been successful, how he had fallen
ill, and how his life had been saved by a good old miner who gave him
an opportunity to work over his dump. Sick as he was he was able in a
few days to find gold enough to take him out of the country to a
doctor. He was now on his way back to his claim and professed to be
very sceptical of Atlin and every other country except Dawson.

The plump lady developed exceedingly kittenish manners late in the
evening, and invited the whole company to share her tent. A singular
type of woman, capable of most ladylike manners and having
astonishingly sensible moments, but inexpressibly silly most of the
time. She was really a powerful, self-confident, and shrewd woman,
but preferred to seem young and helpless. Altogether the company was
sufficiently curious. There was a young civil engineer from New York
City, a land boomer from Skagway, an Irishman from Juneau, a
representative of a New York paper, one or two nondescripts from the
States, and one or two prospectors from Quebec. The night was cold
and beautiful and my partner and I, by going sufficiently far away
from the old Tennesseean and the plump lady, were able to sleep
soundly until sunrise.

The next morning we hired a large unpainted skiff and by working very
hard ourselves in addition to paying full fare we reached camp at
about ten o'clock in the morning. Atlin City was also a clump of
tents half hidden in the trees on the beach of the lake near the
mouth of Pine Creek. The lake was surpassingly beautiful under the
morning sun.

A crowd of sullen, profane, and grimy men were lounging around,
cursing the commissioners and the police. The beach was fringed with
rowboats and canoes, like a New England fishing village, and all day
long men were loading themselves into these boats, hungry, tired, and
weary, hastening back to Skagway or the coast; wh