s the most forlorn, amongst strangers unacquainted with
his language. The poor fellow had been as gay as a cricket amidst the
dangers of the Arctic, but here he was as timid as a lost child, gazing
hour by hour into the water, smoking endless cigarettes, and thinking,
perhaps, of his wife and little "Isba" in now distant Siberia.

On July 15 we passed the boundary into British North-west territory, and
shortly afterwards hailed the British flag fluttering from the barracks
at Forty Mile City as an old and long-lost friend. This was the chief
town of the Upper Yukon in the palmy days of the Hudson Bay Company when
furs rather than gold were the attraction to these gloomy regions. In
1896 this was the highest point reached by the larger river-boats, and
here, on that occasion, we left the tiny skiff in which we had travelled
for over a month on the great lakes, and boarded the steamer for St.
Michael. Forty Mile then consisted of eighty or ninety log-huts on a mud
bank, where numerous tree-stumps, wood-shavings, empty tins, and other
rubbish littered the ground amongst the houses, adding to the general
appearance of dirt and neglect. But now several neat, new buildings have
arisen from the ashes of the old; streets have been laid out with
regularity; and a trim fort is occupied by a khaki-clad detachment of
the North-west Mounted Police. Forty Mile is more of a military post
than anything else, most of its prospectors having left the place for
the Klondike, although a few years back this was the chief rendezvous of
Yukon pioneers. These, however, were mostly "grub-stakers," quite
content if enough gold-dust was forthcoming to keep the wolf from the
door. In those days a nugget of any size was a rarity, and fortunes were
made here, not by the miner, but by those who fed and clothed him. For
instance, in 1886 Forty Mile Creek yielded less than L30,000, but at
this time the total number of prospectors in the entire territory of the
Upper Yukon was under 250, and very few of these who could avoid it
wintered in the country.

At last, on the thirteenth day, we neared our destination. "It seems a
month since we left St. Michael," says the confidence-man as for the
last time we watch the pine forest darken and the great river fade into
a silvery grey in the twilight. From the brightly lit saloon come the
tinkle of a piano and the clear notes of Mrs. Z.'s voice. Her pathetic
little melody is familiar to the wanderer in every lone