The True Life Story of Swiftwater Bill Gates

IT may seem odd to Alaskans, and by that I mean, the men and women who really live in the remote, yet near, northern gold country, that “Swiftwater Bill”--known to both the old...

A LITTLE, low-eaved, common, ordinary looking road house, built of logs, with one room for the bunks, another for a kitchen and a third for miscellaneous purposes, used to be we...

IT WOULD be useless to encumber my story with a lengthy and detailed narrative of Swiftwater Bill’s experiences in the first mad rush of gold-seekers up the narrow and devious c...

SWIFTWATER has often told me that he never could quite understand why it was that the way to a woman’s heart, even his own way--Swiftwater’s--was so hard to travel and so deviou...

IT HAS always seemed a standing wonder to me that when Swiftwater had separated himself from about $100,000 or more in gold dust with the Lamore sisters as the chief beneficiari...

“MAMA,” said Bera to me, “Mrs. Ainslee is not nearly so well today, and Mr. Hathaway said when he came down from the hospital this afternoon that she wanted to see you sure this...

A FULL thirty days after Swiftwater and Hathaway had left Seattle, following the affair on the decks of the steamer “Humboldt,” found the miner and his friend in Skagway. It was...

HYDRAULIC mining in the Klondike country, by the time that Swiftwater had assembled his big outfit on Quartz Creek was in its very infancy, yet there were plenty of wise men in...

TO THE people of Dawson, in those days, starving through weary winter months for want of frequent mail communication with the civilized world, and hungering for the ebb and flow...

IT WAS pitch dark when I left the cabin and made my way directly, as best I could, to the town with its dimly lighted streets. It seemed to me that I had never had a friend in a...

AS I write this chapter, which is to interest not only the friends and acquaintances of Swiftwater Bill, but which also may throw a new light on his character, and may even arou...

AS I look back on that day in Nome and recall the sensation created in the little mining camp when the paper containing the story of Swiftwater’s perfidy was circulated abroad a...

One morning in Seattle months after Bera and I had set up a little housekeeping establishment in Seattle, I picked up the Saturday evening edition of The Times and almost droppe...

SOMETIMES, when I recall the stirring events in Swiftwater Bill’s career, following the time he used the money I raised by pawning my diamonds and then went to California, I am...

On Number 6 Cleary Creek, in the Tanana, the man who gained his chiefest fame in the early days of Dawson by walking around the rapids of Miles Canyon, because he was afraid to...

SWIFTWATER’S clean-up on Number 6 Cleary Creek was $75,000 in gold. The summer was come to an end and there were signs on the trees, in the crackling of the frosted grass in the...

AS A VERACIOUS chronicler of the events, inexplicable and unbelievable as this story may appear, of the life and exploits of Swiftwater Bill Gates, I want to begin this chapter...

I AM getting to the end of my story, and as the finish draws near, it seems to me, that I have not quite done justice by Swiftwater Bill, in at least one respect--and that is th...

AGAIN it is spring, and I sit all alone in my room in Seattle, knowing that the city is filled with miners, their faces set in the direction of the Golden North, their hearts be...

Little Freddie Gates, Swiftwater’s youngest boy, looked up in my face with the dearest kind of a smile, and put his arm on my shoulder. The little fellow had just had his night...