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"Where that come from?" Daylight was all innocence as he asked the question, and Ladue received the question as stolidly as an Indian. Yet for a swift instant they looked into each other's eyes, and in that instant an intangible something seemed to flash out from all the body and spirit of Joe Ladue.
And with the Missioner had come Ladue, the Frenchman, who could send a bullet through the head of a running fox at two hundred yards four times out of five. Kaskisoon and his Crees had not arrived, and Philip knew that Jean was disappointed. "I heard three days ago of a big caribou herd to the west," said Janesse in answer to the half-breed's inquiry. "It may be they have gone for meat."
The names of these three men, as their lives, are bound up in the history of the country, and so long as there be histories and charts, that long will the Mayo and McQuestion rivers and the Harper and Ladue town site of Dawson be remembered. As an agent of the Alaska Commercial Company, in 1873, McQuestion built Fort Reliance, six miles below the Klondike River.
"Why don't you tackle Indian River, Daylight?" Harper advised, at parting. "There's whole slathers of creeks and draws draining in up there, and somewhere gold just crying to be found. That's my hunch. There's a big strike coming, and Indian River ain't going to be a million miles away." "And the place is swarming with moose," Joe Ladue added.
In the meantime, and from the day he washed seven hundred dollars from a single pan and squatted over it and thought a long thought, he never again touched hand to pick and shovel. As he said to Joe Ladue the night of that wonderful washing: "Joe, I ain't never going to work hard again. Here's where I begin to use my brains. I'm going to farm gold.
But an hour later, at his own camp, Joe Ladue strode in, fresh from Bonanza Creek. At first, non-committal over Carmack's strike, then, later, dubious, he finally offered Daylight a hundred dollars for his share in the town site. "Cash?" Daylight queried. "Sure. There she is." So saying, Ladue pulled out his gold-sack.
I got two and a half the first lick. Then I named the creek 'Bonanza, staked Discovery, and we come here and recorded." He looked about him anxiously for signs of belief, but found himself in a circle of incredulous faces all save Daylight, who had studied his countenance while he told his story. "How much is Harper and Ladue givin' you for manufacturing a stampede?" some one asked.
They have been trading in the country since 1873 and have occupied numerous posts all along the river, the greater number of which have been abandoned. Mr. Harper is now located as a trader at Fort Selkirk, with Mr. Joseph Ladue under the firm name of Harper & Ladue, and Mr.
The valley as far as can be seen from the mouth, runs about due west for a distance of eight miles; it then appears to bear to the south-west; it is about two miles wide where it joins the Pelly valley and apparently keeps the same width as far as it can be seen. "Mr. Harper, of the firm of Harper & Ladue, went up this river with sleds in the fall of 1872 a distance of fifty or sixty miles.
From Five Finger Rapids the traveller goes six miles below, down the Lewes, to the Rink Rapids. On going through the Rink Rapids, he continues on the Lewes River to Fort Selkirk, the trading post of Harper and Ladue, where the Pelly and Lewes, at their junction, form the headwaters of the Yukon. You are now at the head of the Yukon River, and the worst part of your trip is over.
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