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Updated: May 8, 2025
Countless stories are told of heroic fight and panic rout; of midnight assault on lonely cabins, and ambush of heavy-laden immigrant scows; of the deaths of brave men and cowards, and the dreadful butchery of women and children; of bloody raid and revengeful counter stroke.
Some day, he hoped, kregg-beef would be an item of sale to ships putting in on Tanith, and the long-haired hides might even find a market in the Sword-Worlds. They had contragravity scows plying between Rivington and Tradetown regularly, now, and air-lorries were linking the villages. The boatmen of Tradetown rioted occasionally against this unfair competition.
Tents were pitched on scows, and camp stoves with their accompanying smoke stacks peeping through the canvas did full duty. Mining tools formed a large and conspicuous part of the supplies of the incoming prospectors, for they were to exploit a certain rich section of country still in its virginity, and there were no trading posts near. In the multitude there were men, women and children.
The flotilla, considerably superior at the outset of the war, to that of the Americans, had worked up the river during the night, and anchored in the middle lay with their broadsides ready to open upon any force that might appear to oppose the landing of the troops, while numerous scows, for the transport of a light brigade of horse artillery, and all the boats and batteaux that could be collected, added to those of the fleet, lay covering the sands, ready to receive their destined burdens.
When it seemed to Norman and Roy that there would be no end to the long delay, Colonel Howell also reappeared. With a nod of his head to all, he spoke quickly in the Cree language to his steersmen. Old Moosetooth grunted a command and the men ran to the hawsers holding the scows against the current.
In and out among canvas walls and taut guy-ropes the travelers wound their way, emerging at length upon a gravelly beach where vast supplies of provisions were cached. All about, in various stages of construction, were skeletons of skiffs, of scows, and of barges; the ground was spread with a carpet of shavings and sawdust.
Instead of gorgeous packets crowded with a gay and prodigal throng of travelers for pleasure, we now find most often one dingy, puffing steamboat, probably with no passenger accommodations at all, but which pushes before her from Pittsburg to New Orleans more than a score of flatbottomed, square-nosed scows, aggregating perhaps more than an acre of surface, and heavy laden with coal.
Upon closer approach the river shore was seen to be lined with scows and rowboats; a stern- wheeled river steamer lay moored abreast of the town. Above it a valley broke through from the north, out of which poured a flood of clear, dark water. It was the valley of the Klondike, magic word. The journey was ended.
"All right," he exclaimed, "they'll work the better for it. Feed 'em. Four meals a day that's the least that any half-breed demands." While Colonel Howell and the crew began getting the two scows broadside along the bank, the Cree cooks unloaded the two cook outfits and the grub boxes.
Had the girl been more familiar with the French half-breeds of the outlands she would have been suspicious of the man's sudden taciturnity under stress of anger suspicious, also, of the gradual shifting that had been going on for days among the crews of the scows.
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