The Trail of the Goldseekers
Reading edition
A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse
By HAMLIN GARLAND
Author of
Rose of Dutcher's Coolly
Main Travelled Roads
Prairie Folks
Boy Life on the Prairie, etc.
New York The Macmillan Company London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 1906
Copyright, 1899, By HAMLIN GARLAND.
Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1899. Reprinted January, 1906.
Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Coming of the Ships 3
Outfitting 11
On the Stage Road 21
In Camp at Quesnelle 33
The Blue Rat 37
The Beginning of the Long Trail 45
The Blackwater Divide 53
We swim the Nechaco 63
First Crossing of the Bulkley 73
Down the Bulkley Valley 81
Hazleton. Midway on the Trail 97
Crossing the Big Divide 107
The Silent Forests 119
The Great Stikeen Divide 131
In the Cold Green Mountains 139
The Passing of the Beans 151
The Wolves and the Vultures Assemble 163
At Last the Stikeen 175
The Goldseekers' Camp at Glenora 185
Great News at Wrangell 195
The Rush to Atlin Lake 207
Atlin Lake and the Gold Fields 217
The End of the Trail 231
Homeward Bound 241
Ladrone travels in State 251
The Goldseekers reach the Golden River 259
POEMS
Anticipation 1
Where the Desert flames with Furnace Heat 2
The Cow-boy 9
From Plain to Peak 19
Momentous Hour 31
A Wish 32
The Gift of Water 35
Mounting 35
The Eagle Trail 36
Moon on the Plain 43
The Whooping Crane 51
The Loon 51
Yet still we rode 61
The Gaunt Gray Wolf 79
Abandoned on the Trail 80
Do you fear the Wind? 95
Siwash Graves 105
Line up, Brave Boys 106
A Child of the Sun 117
In the Grass 118
The Faithful Broncos 129
The Whistling Marmot 130
The Clouds 137
The Great Stikeen Divide 138
The Ute Lover 147
Devil's Club 150
In the Cold Green Mountains 150
The Long Trail 159
The Greeting of the Roses 161
The Vulture 172
Campfires 173
The Footstep in the Desert 182
So this is the End of the Trail to him 190
The Toil of the Trail 193
The Goldseekers 205
The Coast Range of Alaska 215
The Freeman of the Hills 229
The Voice of the Maple Tree 230
A Girl on the Trail 239
O the Fierce Delight 249
The Lure of the Desert 258
This out of All will remain 262
Here the Trail ends 263
ANTICIPATION
I will wash my brain in the splendid breeze, I will lay my cheek to the northern sun, I will drink the breath of the mossy trees, And the clouds shall meet me one by one. I will fling the scholar's pen aside, And grasp once more the bronco's rein, And I will ride and ride and ride, Till the rain is snow, and the seed is grain. The way is long and cold and lone— But I go. It leads where pines forever moan Their weight of snow, Yet I go. There are voices in the wind that call, There are hands that beckon to the plain; I must journey where the trees grow tall, And the lonely heron clamors in the rain. Where the desert flames with furnace heat, I have trod. Where the horned toad's tiny feet In a land Of burning sand Leave a mark, I have ridden in the noon and in the dark. Now I go to see the snows, Where the mossy mountains rise Wild and bleak—and the rose And pink of morning fill the skies With a color that is singing, And the lights Of polar nights Utter cries As they sweep from star to star, Swinging, ringing, Where the sunless middays are.