THE KLONDIKE GOLD MYSTERY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 9109, 9 March 1898, Page 4

THE KLONDIKE GOLD MYSTERY.

BY JOHN E. MUSICK. CHAPTER VIII. It is necessary at this point in our story to return to Clarence Berry's party, which we left on the top of the Chilkoot Pass in a raging storm. All through that terrible night Clarence Berry lay thinking of his young wife, whom he bad packed away as comfortable ad was possible in that terrible height in the frigid zone, Sometimes he thought she must be freezing, and next feared she would be smothered among the furs and blankets. The crackling and thunder of tumbling glaciers occassionally thrilled him with a dread of being crushed beneath them. But everything must have an end, and so did that night. Day dawned bright and clear, and he arose early and called to his wife : ' Ethel, Ethel, are you alive ?' There came no answer until he had pulled away some of the packages that formed her apartment ; then he heard her voice answering : ' I am all right, Clarence.' It waa cheering news to him. ' Thank God !' ejaculated the husband. ' I feared you bad perished during that terrible storm.' ' What shall we do for wood to make a fire ?' asked one of the party. ' There is no wood on the mountain-top. , ' Cut up a sled,' answered Clarence. • That'll make a pretty expensive fire," declared Dick, ' Nevertheless, if it's got to be done, let it be done.' In a few moments he had split up a sled with an axe and had a fire blazing on the snow. The air was intensely cold, but Ethel Berry declared she suffered little from it. Dick and " Hemstitch," the Esquimaux, were self-constituted cooks, and prepared a breakfast of a pot of boiled beans, and a little coffee, which froze on the slightest provocation. Dick declared it froze so quickly that the bubbles from boiling crystalizai on the surface. When breakfast was over two sleds were loaded with supplies, and without dogs or anyone to drag them, started to coast down tbe mountain. They went with a velocity greater than an express train until they struck the ice crater three-fourths of a mile below. After that every foot was gained by the most arduous toil and suffering. Whatever the suffering and hardships of others were, Ethel Berry was protected from the severer trials. Day aEter day, when going up the mountain or down it, whether coasting along a gentle slope or gliding over a lake, she was wrapped in her furs and robes, sitting on her sled or boat. Her position at times became uncomfortable, and often she feared the sled would be upset and she da9hed to death down some terrible precipice. Clarence became somewhat accustomed to the cold, after the first two or three weeks. The weather all the while was growing warmer, and the snow in places had begun to melt. This did not make travel in thie country any lighter. In fact it rathar increased the hardship and hazardousness of the journey. With their heavy outfit strapped on sleds, Indians, squaws and dog 3, they struggled over the trail. Tho ? .Honing snow, under the sun's gleaming my?,r n y?, rendered traveling so difficult that it became a pitiable sight to watch the halfstarved, half-clothed Indians struggling along with the heavy burdens on their backs, climbing the mountain aide, frequently breaking through drifted snow and being hurled almost out of sight; wading through icy streams, falling from foot-logs and enduring hardships from which death would seem a welcome relief. The endurance of the3e Indians as human beasts of burden was a constant surprise to Clarence Berry. Hβ saw one young buck whose smallest load was one hundred and fifty pounds. His wife was a young squaw, who with seventy-five pounds strapped on her back, and a four-weeks-old child in her arms, struggled up the Chilkoot Pass, where the declivity was so steep that they were compelled to dig steps in the ice and snow in order to make the ascent. The descent was fully as difficult and two weeks were consumed in reaching Lake Linderman, eleven miles farther on. Here they were detained another week, completing a boat with which they could make their way down the river. The party usually chose camping places where they would be the least exposed to the keen north gale, which so often swept over thp mountain region. One night, after a day of arduous toil, they camped at the foot of a mountain protected from the north wind by a steep precipice. The snow had been scraped away, the tent spread and a great fire of pine logs was blazing. They had halted in the midst of a dense pine wood, and the columnared trunks of those tall trees were thrown into bold relief by the lurid glare from the flames. The dogs had been unharnessed, fed and liy sleeping about the sides. The tired Indians, having had supper, were stretched before the fire. Ethel, attired in furs, sat on a sled .vhichhad been drawn up before the blazing logs. Her proud husband declared she looked like an angelic Esquimaux queen. The dreaded Chilkoot Pass was crossed and their guide assured them that the worst was over. Every one felt a great relief, Clarence sat before tho fire by tho side of his brave little wife building air castles in his imagination. Occasionally ho cast a glance at the little woman who had braved tho dangers and storms of the arctic regions ■ with him, to see if he could discover any change iv her since the toilsome journey began. ■ She met his looks of anxiety with smiles aod cheerful words, assuring him that while he wag at her side she could endure much greater hardships than they hid gone through. Dick reclined on the skin of a muskox telling a story in which there was blended Bowery slang and Western dialect. A few sentences will be sufficient to show how he waa amusing his listeners : ' It made me weary hearin' 'em say the old geeser was oft his base. All in the world that was f#nny with hira was he needed a new memory. So they went on an' give it out he was dopoy

when all was the matter bis memory waß off its feed. ' Well, one clay a chappie comes j from Fresno, an , hired a room o' this old churn Sherman Castle, who forgot his name an' forgot h'd hired him the room, an' gives some tip to my chum George Norris. So George gets the key I and so does the fresh from Fresno. I One stayed their part o' the time an' so did the other, an' old Sherman Castle, owner o' the room, havin , bats in his belfry, didn't catch on that he'd hired the room to two. i ' One night when this friend o' mine, George Korris, went to his room be found three men in there. He slips up kinder easy-like and finds this fresh from Fresno a-chinnin' two o' tho biggest cut-throats in 'Frisco. He listened to them, and heard 'em plannin' to do up a young feller here in the Klondike, who was not to be allowed to keep any gold, no difference how much he dug, an' was to be detained in Alaska for a certain time. 'It mought o' turned oat to be a good story if my chum had listened to the end, but he went to hunt up the cuss, who'd rented him the room and whose lenzes were a little blurred, to raise a kick because the strangers were in the room—' At this moment one of the dogs started up and gave vent to a low growl, cutting the story short. The guide gave a sharp whistle and seized his rifle. The others at once laid their hands on their guns and stood on the defensive. ' Who is it ? What is it ?' asked Berry, placing his wife in the midst of heaps of packages and boxes to protect her from arrows or bullets, if they should be attacked. 'I dun know !' the scout answered. I' But ten to one there's no danger. The Indians in these parts don't have grit enough to git up a first-class fight. May be a polar bear.' A few moments later a large object could be seen in the distance slowly advancing toward them, Owing to the dim, uncertain light all at first were of the opinion it was a bear, and one or two cocked their guns and stepped out a short distance from the light to get a better shot at the animal. The guide eaddenly called : ' Hold ! It's a man !' * Course it is,' growled a voice in the distance. ' What did ye think it waa —a walrus ?' A man clothed in furs, holding a rifle in his hand, came forward and advanced towards the fire. His gray hair and grizzled beard and eyes were human, but his bear-skin coat and cap were enough to give one at first sight the impression he was a bear. He came within the circle of firelight, and, dropping the breach of his rifle on the ground, rested his hands upon it, and gazed around the camp with a look which was difficult to interpret. Giving him a glance, Dick declared : ' If he isn't a bear, he's glum enough for one.' Ethel rose trembling with fright at the appearance of this strange apparition, and clung to the arm of her husband. ' Who is he?' she whispored. 'Where did that terrible man coaiefrom ?' Though the question was not intended for the ears of thia strange man, he heard them, and in a voice like the deep tones of far-off thunder he answered : ' I am from the Klondike, where you seem to be going, a place where gold can be raked up by the handful.' ' Who are you ? what is your name V Berry asked, advancing toward the Klondiker and extending his hand toward him. 'I am called Glum Ralston,' he answered. ' What are you doing here ?' ' Hunting.' ' There can be but little game among these mountains.' 4 1 hunt for a friend, not for elk, moose or walrus. I've sailed over the roughest seas and not been able to find him.' By this time Clarence Berry had clasped his band and brought him near the fire, where he bade him ba seated and tell his troubles. ' I haint much at spinning yarns. , the ex-sailor answered. 'My friend was robbed on the Klondike a few months ago, an' at the same time laid up for repairs—' Ethel grasped her husband's hand and mentally ejaculated, ' It was Paul.' IHe waited until he got able to navigate,' Glum Ralston continued, in his half sailor and half frontier jargon, ' and he an' I set out alone to catch the men who robbed him and so nearly gave him passage to Davy Jones. ' Well, I won't tell you all about our journey through the country, over hills and mountains. One day we came upon the three sharks sailin' qp the valley. We got within' lead tbrowin , distance an , calls 'em to bait, but they tacked ship, clapped on all sail and scud before the wind, though we sent two bullets after 'em. The precious scamps parted company, two goin' to the right, round one side o' the mountain, and the other two to the left. ' I told Crack-lash to follow the one he'd winged an' I'd answer for the other two, and I crowded all canvas after 'em, but they were so far I couldn't hit 'em to save me. Well, the upshot o' the story is they got away, hid like the rod fox somewhere in the holes in the mountains. I spent two days tryin' to find 'cm, then set out to find Crack-lash. But it ain't no use. The snow covered up his tracks, an' I ain't been able to come onto 'em again. What become of him I don't know, bui it's my opinion he's dead, Either fell in sornegyeat mountain chasm or been killed by them skunks who want to detain him in the Klondike, or else, liko my poor captain, he's just gone off, an' we don't know where he is !' Ethel Berry listened with the keenest interest to the story of Glum Ralston, and tears gathered in her eyes. She new the missing companion was none other than Paul Miller, whose fate would perhaps never be known. S,he did not think so much of Paul, lying cold and dead in some mountain chasm or, perhaps, buried countless fathoms of feet beneath the eternal snows of Alaska, as she did her of poor friend, Paul's betrothed, back in Frenso. ' Oh, heaven, poor Laura! how shall we break this terrible news to her, Clarence?' she sobbed. The young husband mnc/o no answer, and Glum Kalston, lighting his pipe, proceeded to smoke in silence. [to be continued.] Certainly the boet medioina kdowa i Sander and Hone' Eucalypti Kxtraot. Tee its eminently powerful eifeote in ooughs oolds, influenza—the relief ia instantaneous In serious oases, and acoidentH of all kinds be they wounds, burns, scaldinga, bruisea sprains, it is tho safest remedy—no awellipr? no inflammation. J,i!jo eurnriejng ofleovs projuopd la ct6up, diphtheria, bronchitis, iiviiiimrantion of tbe lungs, ewelliugSj 010. ; diarrham, dyaontry, diseases cf the kidneys and urinary organs. In uao at hospitals and medioal olinios all over the globe; patronised by hia Majesty tho King of Italy; orowned with medal end diploma tt International Exhibition, Amttei'dani. Trust In thia approved avtiolo, end rejeot all Others. NKIJ/S HKBB BEKK UX'fBAGT, Iβ; a bottle of whioh makes 4 gallons of Herb Deer. A splendid summer drink Tonio, refreshing and appoMsing, at Nhil's Botanic Dispensary, Emorsoo street, Napier. A New Preparation (Bkin Emollient), for keeping the hands and facie soft and white, preventing and ouring Sunburn, Tanepota, Hore Lips, Koughnoes of tho Bkin, etc., may be had for Iβ at A. J. Wiliiihb's Pharmacy.