To illustrate the extreme fascination that gold exercises over these prospector-navvies, one incident is worth relating. The men were driving the grade with great zest, quite contented with their lot, because the majority had tasted the bitterness of ill-luck at the Klondike. One day news trickled into the camp of the discovery of a new goldstrike not far distant in British Columbia. It galvanised the labourers like electricity, awoke all slumbering ambitions and re-erected all the castles in the air which Dawson had dispelled so ruthlessly. A solid phalanx of 1,500 men threw down their tools and clamoured round the pay-office of the engineers for their wages due to them forthwith. Not having received any premonitory warning of this development, the engineer inquired what was the matter, thinking that possibly a “strike” was being nursed. As the wages were paid the men stampeded off to see if Fortune could be wooed any more easily at Atlin than she could be won at Klondike. As the railway was pushed through hurriedly while the Klondike gold fever was at its height, some of the work was of a temporary character, but once the communication was established the whole line was overhauled. Timber trestles and bridges were replaced by heavier substantial metallic structures, and the earthworks were strengthened. To-day the road compares with any to be found on the continent. The service is daily, except Sundays, and the line is patrolled regularly for boulders or avalanches which may have crashed down the mountain-sides, to come to rest on the track, and which form fearsome obstructions to a train. In winter it is kept open by means of the rotary snow-ploughs. This is no easy task, for the blizzards among mountains of the north are ferocious in their severity. Drifting snow often fills the cuttings to a depth of 35 feet or so. Two locomotives harnessed to one of these snow-clearers generally contrive to force a clean open passage through the fleecy mass, however. It may be pointed out that this railway possesses the largest type of narrow-gauge engines in the world, the engine and tender in working order turning the scale at 106 tons. Travel from our point of view appears somewhat expensive, since it averages 1_s._ or 25 cents per mile. The total cost of constructing and building the railway amounted to £850,000, or $4,250,000. The most expensive section was that from Skaguay to the White Pass summit, this first twenty miles involving an expenditure of £400,000, or $2,000,000. In the first season after completion, however, its gross receipts were £800,000, or $4,000,000, 25 per cent. of which was absorbed by working expense.