At last Big Curly hitched his chair out farther from the wall, and placed his feet comfortably upon the rungs; then, shifting his tobacco from one cheek to the other, he asked if any one present had heard the story of Nelson and the ghost. No one had heard it, and, after some coaxing, this is the tale he told. The Ghost of Forty Mile. Alaska has long smiled over old Indian legends, but Yukon men are still puzzling over the nocturnal rambles of the ghost of a murdered man in the Forty Mile District. Following the excitement of the discovery of Bonanza Bar and the sensational riches of Franklin Gulch came the murder of an old Frenchman named La Salle. Tanana Indians committed the crime in 1886. They crossed the mountains to Forty Mile, and killed La Salle in his cabin at the mouth of O'Brian Creek. With axes and bludgeons the old Frenchman's head was crushed beyond recognition. Three months later the snow lay thick upon the ground. Upon the branches of trees it persistently hung, each added layer clinging tenaciously because there was no breath of wind to send it to the ground. Occasionally a dead twig, weighted too heavily by the increasing fall of snow, broke suddenly and dropped noiselessly into a bed of feathery flakes, thus joining its sleeping companions, the leaves. [Illustration: ON BONANZA CREEK.] It was in January that two men might have been seen following their dog-teams down a frozen stream emptying into Forty Mile River. They wished to reach the mouth of the creek before they halted for the night. They had heard of a cabin in which they planned to spend the night, although it was a deserted one, and they were almost at the desired point. The men were Swedes. They were strong and hardy fellows, and although frost covered their clothing and hung in icicles about their faces, they ran contentedly behind the dog-teams in the semi-darkness, as only the snow-light remained. "Hello!" called out Swanson finally to his companion. "Is that the place, do you think?" pointing to the dim shape of a log cabin a little ahead. "Guess it is, but we'll find out. I'm nearly starved, and must stop soon, any way," said Nelson decidedly. "It's no use for us to travel further tonight." "So I think," was the reply, as the dogs halted before the door, and the men entered the cabin. Here they found a good-sized room, containing one window. There was evidently a room on the other side, but with no connecting door, the two cabins having been built together to save laying one wall. "This is good enough for me, and much warmer than a tent--we'll stay here till morning, and take the dogs inside," said kind-hearted Nelson, already unhitching the dogs from a sled. Swanson did the same. The next moment their small store was carried into the cabin, wood was collected, and a cheery fire soon roared up the chimney.