Like fish in their native element, or vampires living off others, so the fat and rubicund-visaged owners of the bulky, black barrels before mentioned, flourished on the needs, discouragements and extremity of their brothers. Booths and shacks were expeditiously erected above their barrels dumped out upon the sands, counters and rude seats were provided, while flaring, staring cloth signs were flung out informing all that this was "The Shelter", "Tommy's Place", or "Your Own Fireside", in order to allure the cold, weary and disheartened travelers into the saloons. Here, in exchange for their money, they were given poisonous and adulterated liquors, imbibing which, with empty stomachs and discouraged hearts, they became ill-natured and selfish, as well as in a chronic state of internal drought. At Skagway the army of "stampeders" swarmed up into the mountains. Following the Skagway River northward up the Grand Canyon, their difficult trail crossed and recrossed the bed of the stream many times. With small trees "corduroy" bridges were hastily thrown down in spots made impassable by bogs and the continued tread of hundreds of hurrying feet. With quick, impatient axe strokes men struck at overhanging and obstructing trees and vines. On all sides hung huge boulders and cliffs like pouting, protruding lips, as if the mountains had been shaken into shape by some subterrane force and resented even yet their rough treatment. Mosses hung from tree trunks, and vines thickly blanketed the rocks and ledges between which dashed sparkling waterfalls in haste to join the Skagway below. It mattered not if the hot noonday sun at times entered these fastnesses; it served only to cheer the hearts of little birds and animals, and bring to pestiferous life millions of mosquitoes and flies to torment both day and night the unfortunate toilers on the White Pass Trail. These toilers worked in desperation. Their mad haste was infectious. Men literally tumbled over each other on the trail in their eagerness to put the Passes behind them. Every man carried strapped upon his back as much of a load as it was possible for him to carry, and often times more, with the not infrequent result that they dropped beneath their packs on the trail. In like manner they loaded the animals they drove before them, and here was exhibited man's awful inhumanity to the dumb brutes. Pack horses, mules and dogs, loaded to top-heaviness and cinched until one could almost hear their bones crack, climbed, straining, struggling, panting, wild eyed and steaming from over-exertion under the lash of angry and profane drivers, until they sank to their haunches, helpless and exhausted, in some quagmire. Such common misfortune necessitated the unloading of the poor beast at the loss of time and patience, not only of his own driver, but those following, as any obstruction to this narrow trail was greeted with extreme disfavor.