For this last information, I will say, I have always been grateful to Swiftwater, because his belief that the time would come when Gold Stream would be one of the best producers in all Alaska, led me to obtain several claims there. And now, let it be known, his prediction has been fully and completely verified. But, knowing nothing of Gold Stream, and remembering only that Swiftwater had added more than $1,000 to his already great obligations to me, and had provided nothing for his family, I journeyed once more across the Coast Range of Alaska. Crossing on the railway from Skagway to White Horse, I met a score or more of traders with their outfits of provisions and fresh vegetables, all hurrying to get into Dawson as soon as the ice broke up, to sell their wares to the miners of the Klondike at fancy prices. There were several women in the party, some of them bent on joining their husbands in Dawson. Three hours ride down the river on a scow, laden with freight of every character, we struck a sand bar and were compelled to spent the night in midstream, absolutely without even a crust of bread to eat, and heaven’s blue our only canopy. The grounding of freight scows in the upper waters of the Yukon in the spring is a common experience, and in those days little care was taken to protect the passengers from suffering hardship and real danger. That night the icy winds blew from the mountain ranges sixty miles an hour, and we suffered severely, not having a mouthful of food since the morning before. The captain of the scow, oblivious to his obligations to his passengers, had loaned the only small boat he had to a pair of miners the day before. We could do nothing until they returned. Finally, after we had been on the bar for more than twelve hours, the men came back with the boat and took us, two at a time, ashore. Then, guided by traders, the women in the party were told to walk down the stream fifteen miles to where there was a camp. It was bitter cold and the trail was hard to walk. In the afternoon of the day following our shipwreck, we stopped and the men built a bonfire, while the poor women fell almost unconscious in front of it, completely exhausted for want of food, which we had not tasted for twenty-four hours. Two of the traders went down to the river’s bank and on the other side they espied a camp of a herder, beneath the shelter of an abandoned barracks. This was the only human habitation within miles. The traders procured a boat and took us women across the river. The herder had some bacon and some dry bread, which he cooked for us. Now, I want to say that never in my life have I ever eaten anything that tasted so good as that meal, consisting only of fried bacon strips placed with the gravy on top of two slices of cold dry bread, and a teacup of hot coffee to wash it down with.