e. He had
prospected in every mining camp from Mexico to Moose Factory. If he were
to find a real bonanza, his English-American friend used to say, he
would be miserable for the balance of his days, or rather his
to-morrows. He lived in his to-morrows,--in these and in dreams. He
loved women, wine, and music, and the laughter of little children; but
better than all these he loved the wilderness and the wildflowers and
the soft, low singing of mountain rills. He loved the flowers of the
North, for they were all sweet and innocent. On all the two thousand
five hundred miles of the Yukon, he used to say, there is not one
poisonous plant; and he reasoned that the plants of the Peace and the
Pine and the red roses of the Upper Athabasca would be the same.

And so, one March morning, he sailed up the Sound to enter his
mountain-walled wonderland by the portal of Port Simpson, which opens on
the Pacific. His English-American friend went up as far as Simpson, and
when the little coast steamer poked her prow into Work Channel he
touched the President of the Chinook Mining and Milling Company and
said, "The Gateway to God's world."

* * * * *

The head of the C.M. & M. Company was not surprised when Christmas came
ahead of Jack Ramsey's preliminary report. Jack was a careful,
conservative prospector, and would not send a report unless there was a
good and substantial reason for writing it out.

In the following summer a letter came,--an extremely short one,
considering what it contained; for it told, tersely, of great prospects
in the wonderland. It closed with a request for a new rifle, some
garden-seeds, and an H.B. letter of credit for five hundred dollars.

After a warm debate among the directors it was agreed the goods should
go.

The following summer--that is, the second summer in the life of the
Chinook Company--Dawson dawned on the world. That year about half the
floating population of the Republic went to Cuba and the other half to
the Klondike.

As the stream swelled and the channel between Vancouver Island and the
mainland grew black with boats, the President of the C.M. & M. Company
began to pant for Ramsey, that he might join the rush to the North. That
exciting summer died and another dawned, with no news from Ramsey.

When the adventurous English-American could withstand the strain no
longer, he shipped for Skagway himself. He dropped off at Port Simpson
and inquired about R