<h3>TRYING FOR A FORTUNE IN ALASKA</h3>
<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">After</span> the failure of the hop business, I was left more or
less at sea for some years. I tried various other projects—among
them the raising of sugar beets. The country, we
soon found, was not adapted to this industry. Then I
tried banking, likewise with little success. Finally I
decided to strike out for the mines of Alaska. This adventure,
taken when I was nearly three score and ten years of
age, was full of exciting experiences. Indeed, it left me
richer only in experience.</div>
<p>I had lived in the old Oregon country forty-four years
and had never seen a mine. Mining had had no attraction
for me. But when my accumulations had all been swallowed
up, I decided to take a chance. In the spring of
1898 I made my first trip over the Chilkoot Pass, went<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></SPAN></span>
down the Yukon river to Dawson in a flatboat, and ran
the famous White Horse Rapids with my load of vegetables
for the Klondike miners.</p>
<p>One may read most graphic descriptions of Chilkoot
Pass; but the difficulties met by those earlier fortune-seekers
who tried it were worse than the wildest fancy can
picture. I started in with fifteen tons of freight and got
through with nine. On one stretch of two thousand feet, I
paid forty dollars a ton. Some others paid even more.</p>
<p>The trip part of the way reminded me of the scenes on
the Plains in 1852, when the people and teams crowded
each other on the several parallel trails. At the pass,
most of the travel came upon one track, and that so steep
the ascent could be made only by cutting steps in the ice
and snow—fifteen hundred steps in all. Frequently every
step would be full, while crowds jostled each other at the
foot of the ascent to get into the single file, each man carrying
a hundred-pound pack on his back.</p>
<p>After all sorts of trying experiences, I finally arrived in
Dawson, where I sold my fresh potatoes at thirty-six dollars
a bushel and other things at proportionate prices. In
two weeks I started up the river, homeward bound, with
two hundred ounces of Klondike gold in my belt. But four
round trips in two years satisfied me that I did not want
any more of such experiences.</p>
<p>Once, fortunately, I was detained for a couple of days,
and thereby escaped an avalanche that buried fifty-two
other people in the snow. I passed by the morgue the
second day after the catastrophe on my way to the summit,
doubtless over the bodies of many unknown dead,
embedded so deeply in the snow that it was utterly impossible
to recover them.</p>
<p>The good ducking I received in my first passage through
the White Horse Rapids made me resolve I would not go<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></SPAN></span>
through there again. But I did it on the very next trip that
same year, and came out of it dry. Again, when going down
the Thirty-Mile River, it did seem that we could not escape
being dashed upon the rocks. But somehow or other we
got through safely, though the bank was strewn with
wrecks and the waters had swallowed up many victims.</p>
<p>When the Yukon proper was reached, the current was
less swift, but the shoals were numerous. More than once
we were "hung up" on the bar, each time uncertain how
we should get off. No mishap resulted, except once when
a hole was jammed into the scow, and we thought we were
"goners" for sure; but we effected a landing so quickly
that we unloaded our cargo dry.</p>
<p>While I now blame myself for taking such risks, I must
admit that I enjoyed it. I was sustained, no doubt, by
high hopes of coming out with my "pile." But fate or
something else was against me, for mining ventures swept
all my gains away "slick as a mitten," as the old phrase
goes. I came out over the rotten ice of the Yukon in
April of 1901 to stay, and to vow I never wanted to see
another mine or visit another mining country.</p>
<p>In two weeks after my arrival home my wife and I celebrated
our golden wedding. There was nothing but a
golden welcome home, even if I had not returned with my
pockets filled with gold.</p>
<p>Since I was then past my allotted three score years and
ten, it naturally seemed that my ventures were at an end.
But for many of these years I had been cherishing a dream
that I felt must come true to round out my days most
satisfactorily. I longed to go back over the old Oregon
Trail and mark it for all time for the children of the pioneers
who blazed it, and for the world. How that dream
was made to come true is the story to be told in the succeeding
part of this book of pioneer stories.</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></SPAN></span></p>
<h2>PART THREE</h2>
<hr style="width: 15%;" />
<h2>RETRACING THE OLD OREGON TRAIL</h2>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"> <SPAN href="images/illus-174-big.png"><ANTIMG src="images/illus-174.png" width-obs="600" height-obs="225" alt="With the development of railroad construction it was thought that roads would go out of use except for local communication." title="" /></SPAN> <span class="caption">With the development of railroad construction it was thought that roads would go out of use except for local communication. But since the advent of motor vehicles, transcontinental highways have again become of great importance. For many reasons it is highly desirable that there should be good roads clear across the continent. Two have been proposed, and in sections meet the requirements of a great transcontinental highway; but neither is yet completed. One is the Oregon Highway, which follows the old Oregon Trail. This is the route over which Ezra Meeker traveled by ox-team in 1906 and on which many monuments have been erected to commemorate the pioneers of the 1840's and '50's. The other is the Lincoln Highway, shown by the lighter line on this map.</span></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus-175.jpg" width-obs="500" height-obs="295" alt="Out on the trail again." title="" /> <span class="caption">Out on the trail again.</span></div>
<h2>CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE</h2>
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