els. These were equipped as rollers or
wheels with a platform on top for sleeping purposes. He calculated
that on the rivers the barrels would act as floaters and so could be
comfortably navigated.

Texas travelled nearly nine miles before the hoops came off. He was
able to retrace his steps to town by the beans the barrels shed on the
road. They took his photograph, and that of his conveyance, before he
started but, on his return, good-naturedly refrained, for it was
distinctly noticeable that Texas had the air of having eaten the canary.

Breneau Fabian, a Belgian, invented a boat which, being intended for
all elements, was constructed from galvanized iron. He called it
Noah's Ark. It was built in two parts with a hinge in the middle.
When open, it could be used on the river, for it had a keel; or on the
snow, for it had runners. If he cared to, he could close up his boat
by means of the hinge--that is, it would turn over, one part on top of
the other, in which shape it was a caravan with wheels attached. His
yoke of oxen were to be killed at Athabasca Landing and salted down as
food for the journey.

For the information of the curiously inclined, I might say that until
recently, Fabian's Ark served as a float at all civic processions such
as Labour Day and the Queen's Jubilee, but it has had its day and its
scrap heap.

Another man, whose name I could not learn, built an ice-boat on the
Saskatchewan River. He had figured out that he could reach the
placer-diggings by means of sails, thus acquiring a distinct monetary
advantage over the folk and fellows who had horses, in that sails would
not require to be fed with hay and oats.

Be it said to the credit of the folk and fellows that they cherished no
grudge in their hearts, for, the sails refusing to act, they loaned him
fourteen teams wherewith to haul his ice-boat on to the bank.

Considering the length and nature of the trail, perhaps the most
bird-witted scheme of reaching the Klondike was that evolved by the "I
Will" Steam-Sleigh Company of Chicago. They ought to have known better.

They built a train of four cabooses or cars, the motive power of which
was steam. A marine boiler and engine were imported from the United
States, upon which they paid $500.00 custom toll. Also, they imported
a revolving drum equipped with teeth, similar to those used on the
log-roads in the big timber-limits, and sprocket-wheels, band-chains,
and other things no m