uated on Stony Creek, which came from Tatchick Lake and
emptied into Tchincut Lake. The shallows flickered with the passing
of trout, and the natives were busy catching and drying them. As we
rode amid the curing sheds, the children raised a loud clamor, and
the women laughed and called from house to house, "Oh, see the white
men!" We were a circus parade to them.

Their opportunities for earning money are scant, and they live upon a
very monotonous diet of fish and possibly dried venison and berries.
Except at favorable points like Stony Creek, where a small stream
leads from one lake to another, there are no villages because there
are no fish.

I shall not soon forget the shining vistas through which we rode that
day, nor the meadows which possessed all the allurement and mystery
which the word "savanna" has always had with me. It was like going
back to the prairies of Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, as they were
sixty years ago, except in this case the elk and the deer were
absent.

YET STILL WE RODE

We wallowed deep in mud and sand;
We swam swift streams that roared in wrath;
They stood at guard in that lone land,
Like dragons in the slender path.

Yet still we rode right on and on,
And shook our clenched hands at the sky.
We dared the frost at early dawn,
And the dread tempest sweeping by.

It was not all so dark. Now and again
The robin, singing loud and long,
Made wildness tame, and lit the rain
With sudden sunshine with his song.

Wild roses filled the air with grace,
The shooting-star swung like a bell
From bended stem, and all the place
Was like to heaven after hell.

CHAPTER VIII

WE SWIM THE NECHACO

Here was perfection of camping, but no allurement could turn the
goldseekers aside. Some of them remained for a day, a few for two
days, but not one forgot for a moment that he was on his way to the
Klondike River sixteen hundred miles away. In my enthusiasm I
proposed to camp for a week, but my partner, who was "out for gold
instid o' daisies, 'guessed' we'd better be moving." He could not
bear to see any one pass us, and that was the feeling of every man on
the trail. Each seemed to fear that the gold might all be claimed
before he arrived. With a sigh I turned my back on this glorious
region and took up the forward march.

All the next day we skirted the shores of Tatchick Lake, coming late
in