THE MAGNETIC NORTH
By
ELIZABETH ROBINS
(C. E. Raimond) Author of "The Open Question," "Below the Salt," etc.
With a Map
1904
Contents
CHAPTER I: WINTER CAMP IN THE YUKON
CHAPTER III: TWO NEW SPISSIMENS
CHAPTER VI: A PENITENTIAL JOURNEY
CHAPTER IX: A CHRISTIAN AGNOSTIC
CHAPTER XII: THE GREAT WHITE SILENCE
CHAPTER XV: THE ESQUIMAUX HORSE
CHAPTER XVII: THE GREAT STAMPEDE
CHAPTER XVIII: A MINERS' MEETING
THE MAGNETIC NORTH
CHAPTER I
"To labour and to be content with that a man hath is a sweet life; but he that findeth a treasure is above them both."—Ecclesiasticus.
Of course they were bound for the Klondyke. Every creature in the North-west was bound for the Klondyke. Men from the South too, and men from the East, had left their ploughs and their pens, their factories, pulpits, and easy-chairs, each man like a magnetic needle suddenly set free and turning sharply to the North; all set pointing the self-same way since that July day in '97, when the Excelsior sailed into San Francisco harbour, bringing from the uttermost regions at the top of the map close upon a million dollars in nuggets and in gold-dust.
Some distance this side of the Arctic Circle, on the right bank of the Yukon, a little detachment of that great army pressing northward, had been wrecked early in the month of September.
They had realised, on leaving the ocean-going ship that landed them at St. Michael's Island (near the mouth of the great river), that