CHAPTER V.

THE AMERICAN CREEK DIGGINGS.

From Forty Mile we floated down the Yukon again, and in a day's journey camped at the mouth of Mission Creek, not then down on the map. It had received its name from miners who had come there prospecting. Several of them were encamped in tents, and they came over and silently watched our cooking, evidently sizing us up.

"When did you leave the Outside?" asked a blue-eyed, blonde, shaggy man. (The Outside means anywhere but Alaska--a man who has been long in the country falls into the idea of considering himself in a kind of a prison, and refers to the rest of the world as lying beyond the door of this.)

"In June," we replied.

"How did the Harvard-Yale football game come out last fall?" he inquired eagerly--it was now August, and nearly time for the next!

"Harvard was whipped, of course," we answered.

"Look here," he said, firing up, "you needn't say 'of course.' Harvard is _my_ college!"

I was engaged in reinforcing my overalls with a piece of bacon sack; I could not help being amused at this fair-haired savage being a college man. "That makes no difference," I replied. "Harvard's _our_ college too--all of us."

"What are you giving me?" he ejaculated, and at first I thought he looked a little angry, as if he thought we were trifling with him; and then a little supercilious, as he surveyed the forlorn condition of my clothing, which the removal of the overalls I wore instead of trousers had exposed.

"Hard facts," I said. "Classes of '92 and '93. Lend me your sheath-knife."

"Why-ee!" he exclaimed. "Ninety-three's my class. Shake!--Rah, rah, rah! Who are we?--You know!--Who are we? We are Harvard ninety-three--what can we do?--WHAT CAN WE DO?--We can lick Harvard ninety-two--cocka-doodle-doodle-doo--Harvard, Harvard--ninety-two--hooray!"

The next day we tramped over to American Creek together, where some new gold diggings were just being developed. The Harvard miner had had no tea for several months, as he told us (and one who has been living in Alaska knows what a serious thing that is) so we brought a pound package along to make a drink for lunch. At American Creek we got a large tomato can outside of a miner's cabin, and the Harvard man offered to do the brewing.

"How much shall I put in?" he asked.

"Suit yourself," was the answer.

He took a tremendous handful. "Is this too much?" he asked, apologetically. "You see, I haven't had tea for three months, and I feel like having a good strong cup." We assured him that the strength of the drink was to be limited only by his own desires. He was tempted to another handful, and so little by little, till half the package was in the can. When he was satisfied, we told him to keep the remaining half pound for the next time. He was disappointed.

"If I had known you intended giving it to me," he replied, "I wouldn't have used so much." We drank the tea eagerly, for we were tired, but my head spun afterwards.

There were some paying claims already on this creek--it was a little stream which one could leap at almost any point--and on the day we arrived we saw the clean-up in one of them. It was very dazzling to see the coarse gold that was scraped from the riffles of the sluice-boxes into the baking-powder cans which were used to store it. There was gold of all sizes, from fine dust up to pieces as big as pumpkin seed; but this was the result of a week's work of several men, and much time had been spent in getting the claim ready before work could begin. Still, the results were very good, the clean-up amounting, I was told, to "thirty dollars to the shovel"--that is, thirty dollars a day to each man shovelling gravel into the sluices.

On the edge of the stream the rock, a rusty slate, lay loosely; one of the miners was thrusting his pick among the pieces curiously, and on turning one over showed the crevice beneath filled with flat pieces of yellow gold of all sizes. They were very thin and probably worth only about five dollars in all, but lying as they did the sight was enough to give one the gold fever, if he did not yet have it. The Harvard man and his companion were immediately seized with a violent attack, and set off down the stream to stake out claims, meanwhile talking over plans of wintering here, so as to be early on the ground the next spring.

I slept on the floor of a miner's cabin that night and the next morning made my way back to our camp on the Yukon.