Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1912 — BURNING DAYLIGHT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BURNING DAYLIGHT

BY JACKLONDON

Author Of ‘The Cal l Of The W/ldT 'WH/TEfANGMaFT/NIIDEN, TtC. Illustrations By Dearborn Melviil

CHAPTER V. Still men %eTe without faith in the strike. When Daylight, with his heavy outfit of flour, arrived at the mouth of the Klondike, he found the big. flat as desolate and tenantless as ever. Down close by the river, Chief Isaac and his Indians were camped beside the frames on which they were drying salmon. Several old-times were also in ‘camp there. Having finished their summer work on Ten Mile Creek, they had come down the Yukon, bound for Circle City. But at Sixty Mile they had learned of the strike, and stopped off to look over the ground. They had just returned to their boat when Daylight landed his flour, and their report was pessimistic. But an hour later, at his ow r n camp, Joe Ladue strode in from Bonanza Creek. He led Daylight away from the camp and men and told hint things in confidence. “She’s sure there,” he said in conclusion. “I didn’t sluice it, or cradle it. I panned it, all in that sack, yesterday, on the rim-rock. I tell you you can shake it out of the grass-roots. And what’s on the bed-rock down in the bottom of the creek they ain’t, no way of tellin’. But she’s big, I tell you, big. Keep it quiet, and locate all you can. It’s in spots, but I wouldn’t be , none surprised if some of them claims yielded ad high as fifty thousand. The only trouble is that it’s spotted.”

A month passed by, and Bonanza Creek remained quiet. A sprinkling of men had staked; but most of them, after staking, had gone on down to Forty Mile and Circle City. The few that possessed sufficient faith to remain were busy building log cabins against the coming of winter. mack and his Indian relatives were occupied in building a sluice box and getting a head of water. The work was slow, for they had to saw their lumber by hand from the standing forest. But farther down Bonanza were four men who had drifted in from up river, Dan McGilvary, Dave McKay, Dave Edwards, and Harry Waugh. They were a quiet party, neither arkin g nor giving confidences, and they herded by themselves. But Daylight, who had panned the spotted rim of Carmack’s claim and shaken, coarre gold from the grass-roots, and who had panned the rim at a hundred other places up qnd down the length of the creek and found nothing, was cuf ribus to know what, lay on bed-rocllD He had noted the four quiet men sinking a shaft close by the stream, and he had heard their whip-saw going as they made lumber for the sluice boxes. He did not wait for an invitation, but he was present the first day they sluiced. And at the five hours’ shoveling for one man, he saw them take out thirteen ounces and a half of gold. It was coarse gold, running from pinheads to a twelve-dollar nugget, and it had come from off bed-rock. The first fall snow was flying that day, and the Arctic winter was closing down; but Daylight had no eyes for the bleak-gray Sadness of the dying, short-lived summer. He saw his vision coming true, and on the big flat was upreared anew his golden city of the snows. Gold had been found on bed-rock. .That was the big thing. Carmack’s strike was assured. Daylight staked a claim in. his own name adjoining three he had purchased with plug tobacco. This gave him a block two thousand feet long and extending In width from rim-rock to rim-rock. Returning that night to his camp at the mouth of Klondike, he found in it Kama, the Indian chief he had left at Dyea. Kama was traveling by canoe, bringing in the last mail of the year. In his possession Was some two hundred dollars in gold-dust, which Daylight immediately borrowed. In return, he arranged to stake a claim for him, which he was to record when he passed through Forty Mile. When Kama departed next morning, he carried a number of letters ler Daylight, addressed to ail the old-timers down river, in vhiqh .they were urged to come up immediately and stake. Also Kama carried letters of similar import, given him by the men on Bonanza.

“It will sure be the gosh-dangriest stampede that ever was,’ Daylight chuckled, as he tried to vision the excited populations of Forty Mile and Circle City tumbling into poling-boats and racing the hundreds of miles up the Yukon; for he knew that his word •would he unquestioningly accepted. One day in December Daylight filled a pan from bed-hock on his own claim and carried it into his cabin. Here a fire burned and enabled him to keep water unfrozen 'in a canvas tank. He squatted over the tank and began to wash. Earth and gravel seemed to fill the pan. As he imparted to it a circular movement, the lighter, coarser particles washed out over the edge. At times he combed the surface with his fingers, raking out handfuls of gravel. The contents of the pan diminished. At is drew near to the bottom, for the purpose of fleeting and tgalaljje-.examination, he gave, the

pan a sudden sloshing inurement, emptying it of w-ater. And the whole bottom showed as if covered with butter. Thus the yellow gold flashed up as the muddy water was filtered away. It was gold—gold-dust, coarse gold, nuggets, large nuggets. He was all alone. He set the pan down for a moment and thought long thoughts. Then he finished the washing, and weighed the result in his scales. At the rate of sixteen dollars to the ounce the pan had contained seven hundred and odd dollars. It was beyohd anything that even he had dreamed. His fondest anticipations had gone no farther than twenty or thirty thousand dollars to a claim; but here were claims worth half a million each at the least, even If they wrere spotted He did not go back to work in the shaft that day, nor the next, nor the next. Instead, capped and mittened, a light stampeding outfit, including his rabbit skin robe, strapped on his back, he was out and away on a many-days’ tramp over creeks and divides, inspecting the whole neighboring territory. On each creek he w-as entitled to locate one claim, but he was chary in thus surrendering up his chances. On Hunker Creek only did he stake a claim. Bonanza Creek he found staked from mouth to source, while every little draw and pup and gulch that drained into it was likewise staked. Little faith was had in these Side-streams. They had been, staked by the hundreds of men who had failed to get in on Bonanza. The most popular of these creeks was Adams. The one least fancied was Eldorado, which flowed into Bonanza,

just above Carmack's Discovery claim. Even Daylight disliked the looks of Eldorado; but, still riding his hunch, he bought a half share in one claim on it for h„lf a sack of flour. A month later he paid eight hundred dollars for the adjoining claim. Three months later, enlarging this block of property, he paid forty thousand for a third ciaini, and, though it was concealed in the future, he wms destined, not long after, to pay one hundred and fifty thousand for a fourth claim on the creak that-had teen the least liked of all the creeks.

In the meantime, and from the day he washed seven hundred dollars from a single pan, and it and •thought a long thought, he never again touched hand to pick and shovel. As he said to Joe La due the night of that wonderful washing: Joe, I ain’t never going to work hard again. Here’s where I begin to me my brains. I’m going to farm gold. Gold will grow gold if you-all have the sa'vvee and can get hold of some for seed. When I seen them seven hundred dollars in the bottom of the pan, I knew I had sped at last.’ The hero of the Yukon in the younger days before the’ Carinack strike. Burning Daylight now becamd the hero of the strike. The story of his hunch and how he rode it was told up and down the land. Certainly he had ridden it far and away beyond the boldest, for no five of the luckiest held the value in claims that' he held. And, furthermore, he was still riding the hunch, and with no diminution of daring.

Back in Dawson, though he remained true to his word and never touched hand to pick ancHshovel, he worked as hard as ever in his / life. He had a thousand irons in the fire, and they kept him busy. Heavy as were his expenses, he won more heavily. He took lays, bought half shares, shared vith the men he grub-staked, and made personal locations.. Day and hjght his dogs were ready, and he owned the fastest teams; so that when a stampede to a new discovery was on, it was Burning Daylight to , the fore through the longest, coldest nights till he blazed his stakes next to Discovery. In one way or another (to say nothing of the many worthless creeks) he came into possession of properties on

the gqcd creeks; trch as Sulphur, Dominion, Exee’sis. wash, Cristc, Alhambra, and Doolittle. The thousands he poured out flowed back in tens of thousands. Dawson grew rapidly that winter of 1896. Money poured in on Daylight from the sale of town lots. He promptly invested it w here it would gather more. In fact, he played the dangerous gaipe of pyramiding, and no more perilous pyramiding than in a placer camp could be imagined. But he played with his eyes wide open. Corner lots in desirable locations sold that winter for from ten to thirty thousand dollars. Daylight sent word out over the trails and passes for the newcomers to bring down log-rafts, and, as a result, the summer of 1897 saw his saw mills working day and night, on three shifts, and still he had logs left over with which to build cabins. These cabins, land included, sold at from one to several thousand dollars. Two-story log buildings, In the business part of town, brought him from forty to fifty thousand dollars apiece. These fresh accretions of capital were immediately invested in other ventures. t He turned gold over and over, until everything that he touched seemed to turn to gold. , With the summer rush from the Outside came special correspondents for the big newspapers and magazines, and one and all. using unlimited space, they wrote Daylight up; so that, so far ds the world was concerned. Daylight loomed the largest figure In Alaska. Of course, after several months, the world became "interested in the Spanish War, and forgot all about him; but in the Klondike itself Daylight still remained the most prominent figure. (To be Continued.)

The Whole Bottom Showed as if Cov. ered With Butter.