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Updated: June 20, 2025
Wunpost strode to meet them and greeted them by name, they came up and looked at the ground; and then, as another machine came around the point, they asked him his price, for cash. "Nothing doing, gentlemen," answered Wunpost. "It's too good to sell. It'll pay from the first day it's worked." He went down to meet the second car of stampeders, and his answer to them was the same.
However, on February 27 the Union Jack flew to the breeze and collection of customs began. A strong guard kept the trail and men were told off to examine the goods of the stampeders. There was a tremendous rush, and Strickland, overworked and suffering from severe bronchitis, struggled along, ably assisted by his splendid men.
From Blackwater to Wild Rose Wash the dust rose up in clouds, each streamer boring on towards the north; and already the first stampeders had passed out of sight in their rush for the Black Point strike. It lay beyond North Pass, cut off from view by the shoulder of a long, low ridge; but there it was, and her claim and Wunpost's was already swarming with men.
Before they had tramped far, however, he saw that the object of his pity possessed a quality which was lacking in many of the younger, stronger stampeders namely, a grim determination, a dogged perseverance no poor substitute, indeed, for youth and brawn. Once the man was in motion he made no complaint, and he managed to maintain a very good pace.
At midday they began the ascent of the divide itself. Behind them, looking down and back, they could see the long line of stampeders breaking up. Here and there, in scores of places, thin smoke-columns advertised the making of camps. As for themselves, the going was hard. They wallowed through snow to their waists, and were compelled to stop every few yards to breathe.
I've been figgerin'. Creek claims is five hundred feet. Call 'em ten to the mile. They's a thousand stampeders ahead of us, an' that creek ain't no hundred miles long. Somebody's goin' to get left, an' it makes a noise like you an' me." Before replying, Smoke let out an unexpected link that threw Shorty half a dozen feet in the rear.
Smoke gripped his ankle and threw him in a headlong tumble. From down the hill came anxious questioning whistles. Saltman sat up and whistled a shrill answer, and was grappled by Smoke, who rolled him face upward and sat astride his chest, his knees resting on Saltman's biceps, his hands on Saltman's shoulders and holding him down. And in this position the stampeders found them.
The ranches within twenty or thirty miles of the border, perhaps, suffered more from the stampeders than from the small ranchers, but those on the northern ranges had constantly to cope with the activities of dishonest cattlemen who owned considerably more calves than they had cows, as a rule. The difficulty was to prove that these calves had been stolen.
"You'll want all the wind you got before you get back," she said shortly, and silence fell on the stampeders. Some of the young men behind were catching up. Maudie set her mouth very firm and quickened her pace. This spectacle touched up those that followed; they broke into a canter, floundered in a drift, recovered, and passed on. Maudie pulled up. "That's all right!
Shorty was irrepressible and pessimistic. When the stampeders resented being passed, he retorted in kind. "What's your hurry?" one of them asked. "What's yours?" he answered. "A stampede come down from Indian River yesterday afternoon an' beat you to it. They ain't no claims left." "That being so, I repeat, what's your hurry?" "WHO? Me? I ain't no stampeder. I'm workin' for the government.
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