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A novel method of getting the vast forests of Oregon to market. Towing a log raft containing over 6,000,000 feet from the Columbia River, Oregon, to San Francisco.

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ILL I come in and have a bite? Cert. You will never find your Uncle Eli turn up missin' on that kind of a lay-you're a cheechacer? I jedged so from your oil stoves, mosquitonettin', and a few other such contraptions that I see lying around promiscuous like. Not going to winter here? Too bad-that's where you miss it. What

you want to do is to mush out over the tundra twenty or thirty miles, spot a few good claims, no matter if they have been staked half a dozen times, strike a job till you get a winter grub-stake, and on the first of January make a grand rush to the claims you have spotted and jump them. Then lay by till the spring run of suckers from the States, and unload.

"Did I ever make any big strikes? Well, son, Alaska is a pretty big country. So far, I've always happened to be stampeding to some 'has been' when the big strikes have been made. I heard of gold bein' found on the beach at Nome here, but I sized it up for a fairy tale and wintered at White Horse instead of coming down. Some of these days, tho', I'll not be a day after the fair. I'll be in on the ground floor when the 'good thing' happens. What? you wouldn't winter here for all the claims in Alaska? Got a wife and baby in the States, eh? Ah! yes, you are black sand to that magnet all right, and I don't blame ye. A feller that wants to stay in Alaska till he pulls out with a stake don't want to be married much. He wants to buy a squaw and forget he ever had any folks in the States.

"Me got a squaw? That's a fair question. No; I'm always expecting that I'll

make a strike yet, and when I do, it will be back to the States and find a wife; or, if I can't make the riffle, it will be a high old time while my money lasts, and back to Alaska to leave my bones up here. All the folks I've got is Jack here. Come, Jack! Lie down, sir, and quit wagging your tail, or you'll knock everything off of this little trembly-legged abomination -no offense meant to your table, sir Would I sell Jack? I've paid four bits a pound for moose meat for Jack, when it took the last pinch of dust in my 'poke' to do it, and I didn't have so much as a color left to buy myself a meal. Jack! No, not for all the gold from Sinrock to Gollivan. That dog is more than a pack-dog and sled-puller to me. He's my friend, my partner, my chum-that's what. He can carry thirty pounds all day and chase squirrels at supper time. He can start seven hundred pounds on the level on a sled, if the ice is anywhere near smooth; he can drag a hundred and sixty pounds dead weight on the sand How come I to know it? He's done it.

Sell

"We were coming down the coast in a small boat; the surf was a bit rough, and a heavy swell was on. I was keeping her headed so as to hug the shore line, but kept outside of the surf. I was a little leary of my mast-the wind was bending it considerable-when, biff! the mast snapped, hit me a crack on the head, the boat heeled over and out I pitched. The first thing I knew I didn't know nothin'. That crack on my head fixed me plenty. I guess Jack sized up the situation and thought it was up to him if we wanted to continue that voyage. Well, the first

thing I noticed was water. I felt like I had been in cold storage as long as I could remember. Then the waves dashed over me and I felt something chewing away at my shoulder. I kind of turned my head, and blamed if Jack wasn't towing me ashore! Every big wave went over us, but Jack held on tight and kept gaining on the shore. I tried to help hin all I could, and finally a big swell threw us onto the beach. We grounded all right, but I was too weak to get out of the reach of the next wave. Jack braced himself and pulled me up on the sand, and after that diverting episode I figured that moose meat at four bits a pound wasn't any too rich for his blood.

"Well, the next little adventure Jack and I had was in this wise. Things came my way at Dawson, and when I got up from the table I cashed my checks for upwards of a thousand in Yukon currency. Well, I was feeling kind o' cockey, so I took a drink or two more than I needed, and when I got to my tent I rolled in. I don't know how much

later, I heard some one say, 'I've got the drop on you, blankety blank you! Throw up your blank hands. I've come for your wad.' Well, I elevated my props and tried a tall bluff. I looked past the thug and said, 'Cover him, and if he makes a false motion, let him have it! The thug never looked 'round. 'It won't work, old man; I slit the back of the tent and come in that way; there ain't a soul in sight, so shell out your wad.' Just about that time an avalanche struck the thug. Jack had him down and was looking for his throat. He raised his revolver and let Jack have it. Then it was my turn. I got out my gun, called Jack off, and with the help of a nearby camper, we strapped the thug's hands behind him and marched him down to the barracks. Well, Jack was a sick dog for a few days, but the bullet wound healed all right; and now money wouldn't buy him.

"Got any chewin'? Thanks. Well, I'd better mush along."

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II-On the Summer Trail

E were sitting in our tent on the beach at Nome, making a pretense of reading, the rain beating furiously on the canvas overhead. Suddenly the tent flap was unfastened and "Mc" poked in his head and dripping

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"Didn't mean to disturb the ha:of the occasion. Keep seats, I can find my way in," and suiting his action to the words, he entered, shed his oilskins, and spread his wet hands be fore the cheerful warmth of our "Klondyke King."

We fell into talk, and mention of the miner whose boat was overturned in front of our tent the day previous, and who was drowned in the surf, brought forth from "Mc" a story.

"I've seen a heap of men pass in their checks in this country, but the toughest deal of that kind I have run across happened up Teslin way two winters ago.

Along about June the winter trail was getting pretty thin in spots, so a friend of mine thought he would try the sum mer one. The two trails are about fifteen miles apart. About supper time he came in sight of a cabin. A storm was coming on, so he gladly went over to the cabin, knowing that if unoccupied he could stay there all night, and also knowing that if the owners were there he would probably be a welcome guest. He pulled the latch string and entered. Apparently the cabin was deserted, tho' in the dim light he could see all the impedimenta of housekeeping lying about. He threw his pack off and started to take a look about. There were chairs, a table, a stove and three bunks: He walked over to one, and, having by this time become accustomed to the semi-darkness. he was startled to find a man in the upper bunk, intently watching his move

ments.

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he asked, with a voice bled in spite of his efforts to control it. The occupant of the second bunk remained unmoved. A horrible suspicion

of the truth of the situation dawned upon him. Investigation proved the truth of his surmise-each of the three bunks was occupied by a dead man. Three miles from the traveled trail, they had died of the dreaded Russian black-leg-a form of scurvy. Four in the cabin-and himself the only living one! He could not stand it better the storm-so, shouldering his pack, he mushed on and made camp under a tree a mile further on. He reported the matter to the mounted police and they rode out and buried the bodies. It was some time before he got over that "look-over-your-shoulder-someoneis-following-you" feeling.

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III-E v e n ing Shadows

TANDING by the side rail of the transport Lawton as she lay at anchor at Unalaska, I looked out toward the mouth of the harbor. The gaunt, grim cliffs that guard the harbor's entrance were lit by the sun's parting rays. Trhough a gap in the hillside closely rolled the enshrouding mist of evening. The still waters of the harbor mirrored the soft pink of the slow-moving clouds, and with a transient gleam of beauty reflected the glory of the dying day. The sunlight fell on mountain side and snow-capped peak, and under the deft touch of Nature's alchemy the cap of snow was transmuted into a crown of lustrous silver. The ever changeful waters, trembling and translucent, gleamed with tints of opalescent beauty-dull silver, pale green, ever varying shades of blue and purple, and, at last, borrowing the splendor of the evening clouds, the sea reflected the sunset glow of pearl and pink and gray. Mountain peak and rock-strewn hill, green as emerald in their robes of summer verdure, fell sharply to the water's

Now

edge, their feet laved by the ceaselessly murmuring waves. The harbor was a pale opal, set in emeralds. through the narrow entrance to the harbor, between the rugged sentinels of rock, there came a little boat, whose tiny square of canvas shone white and beautiful, like the gleam of an angel's wing seen thro' the gates of Paradise. As I saw the dingy little sail transfigured and glorified, the thought came to me: when comes the time when we "shall cross the bar" and "see our Pilot face to face," may the earth-stained fabric of our lives be in like manner transfigured and glorified! Our little round of duties done, which seems to us of so little worth, the common tissues of our lives which we weave so oft with clumsy and rebellious hands, and eyes dimmed by unshed tears, may prove a part of a glorious and harmonious whole, which to our awakened vision shall shine all glorious! Slowly the sunset fades; sail and wave and snowcapped peak lose their lustre, and the night comes.

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IV-Hom e

TENT on the beach. The soft plash and murmur of waves on the thirsty sand. Within the tent, on an improvised cót, a young man, his hands plucking, plucking at the covers. His eyes, sometimes strangely and beautifully bright when the fever is at its height, are lusterless now. Hospital rates five to ten dollars a day, and there is only a little over an ounce of "dust" left in the buckskin pouch.

The sick man's partner is crouching. over an oil stove, cooking. The tears come faster than he can wink them away. "All right, mother, I'll remember." The sick man is smiling. He is at home again. "I think I have the answer, teacher." He has gone back to his boy hood and is sitting on the rude wooden bench in the little log schoolhouse at the fork of the roads. "Get up, Bess. Steady there, Dolly." How straight he could make his furrow and how evenly the rich soil rose before his ploughshare, and O! the good, wholesome, earthly smell of the newly plowed land.

His comrade goes over to him and says, "Brace up, Will, and try to eat something; you need it. It will give you strength so you can soon start for home and mother." A smile lights up the dying man's eyes. "Mother? Is that you, mother?" Then a smile of ineffable peace comes over his countenance. He sinks back with a sigh of content and his partner, bending over him, hears the

At Last

faintly whispered words: "Oh! I'm so glad. Home at last!"

The man whose rockers were next to his on the beach and his comrades from the neighboring tents go to his tent next day, and, placing the rude coffin across three shovels, take up their burden, three men on either side. A miner-preacher who has quit his rocker for an hour to say the last sad words, and a little group of roughly clad miners with bared heads walk two by two behind the rude coffin, over the winding path across the tundra to the grave-yard. All night has the dead man's partner toiled to sink a fourfoot grave thro' the frozen ground. The coffin is lowered. A panfull of beach the solemn "earth to earth, dust to dust. sand is sprinkled upon the coffin while ashes to ashes, and the spirit of God who gave it" is said. Then, with voices which shake and tremble, they sing:

"We shall sleep, but not forever, there will be a glorious dawn;

We shall wake to part, no, never, on the resurrection morn."

One more rounded mound on the hillside-how fast they are being added! Still the waves kiss and woe the shore, still the ships in the offing bow and nod in their slow and stately way before the swell of the waves, and their cordage sings in the breeze; still to the ears comes the musical jingle of rocker and shovel and pan.

All is the same. All, did I say? God comfort her,-no. A mother far away, broken-hearted.

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