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VIII. CHRISTMAS Thursday, December nineteenth.—This day is never to be forgotten, so beautiful, so calm, so still with the earth and every branch and tree muffled in deep, feathery, new-fallen snow. And all day the softest clouds have drifted lazily over the heaven shrouding the land here and there in veils of falling snow, while elsewhere or through the snow itself the sun shone. Golden shadows, dazzling peaks, fairy tracery of branches against the blue summer sea! It was a day to Live,—and work could be forgotten. So Rockwell and I explored the woods, at first reverently treading one path that the snow about us might still lie undisturbed. But soon the cub in the boy broke out and he rolled in the deepest thickets, shook the trees down upon himself, lay still in the snow for me to cover him completely, washed his face till it was crimson, and wound up with a naked snow-bath. I photographed him standing thus in the deep snow at the water's edge with the mountains far off behind him. Then he dried himself at the roaring fire we'd made ready and felt like a new boy—if that can be imagined. We both sketched out-of-doorsfor a little while in the morning like young lady amateurs. I tried it again two or three times throughout the day with indifferent results; it was too beautiful. We cut wood too, and that went with a zest. While Rockwell dried himself after his bath I searched in the woods for a Christmas tree and cut a fair-sized one at last for its top. Christmas is right upon us now. To-night the cranberries stew on the stove. Olson has been here and has told us another part of his adven121 tures. These stories seem to me so interesting as pictures of pioneering days that are already over that I shall continue to note them down as I hear them from him. Olson, in the early winter of 1886-7 left San Francisco for Juneau, Alaska, with his partner John—, a Norwegian, Louis Brown, who had attached himself to Olson's party and a man named Tom Boswell. They had met Boswel] somewhere in San Francisco flashing a treasury receipt for $7,000 in gold which he claimed to have panned out in Alaska. Boswell knew the country and knew where gold was to be found and the party followed his lead. From Juneau this party and numberless other prospectors were carried by steamer to Chilkoot, a few miles below the present site of Skagway [?]. From here began the hard trip overland to the headwaters of the Yukon River. Every man hauled his outfit on a long sled and the outfits weighed from five hundred to a thousand pounds each. Olson's party was the second to get started; the first consisted of two men, Carter and Mahon, and their trail Olson followed to the Hootalinkwa River itself where they were finally all to carry on their operations. The trail was difficult. The first twenty-five miles to Lake Lindeman involved an ascent over a pass that carried them above the timber line. The loads had to be packed over, a man carrying at one time about fifty pounds, though one huge Frenchman, whom they called Napoleon, carried as well three sacks of floor, one hundred and fifty pounds. On the descent from the pass Olson's party's sleds broke from them and raced down the mountain side overturning at last and doing some damage. Olson described a drink that was brewed that night after the recovery of their sleds and outfits, a drink for tired men, the best he had ever tasted. It contained a whole 50 cent bottle of Patent Pain Killer.' From Lake Lindeman they continued with the main body of travellers through Mills Canyon, but from here bore off to the eastward following the lead of Carter and Mahon; and from here onward these two parties are alone on the trail to the head of the Hootalinkwa River. Carter endeavored to discourage Olson's party from following, for miners who know of the location of gold naturally would keep it to themselves. But they were not to be dissuaded. It seemed to Olson's crowd that men would not return to ground they had already worked upon without good cause. Three or four days journey from the river of their destination both parties cached...

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