Around these fjords rose tall cliffs, tree covered for the most part, among which appeared little fishing villages or hamlets, but most often there was a small, isolated dwelling, home to aboriginal people who lived by hunting and fishing. As the Football went by, they came out to sell their products, which found ready buyers.

Away off beyond the cliffs, mountains reared their snow-capped peaks through the mist, while on the Queen Charlotte Islands nothing could be seen but long plains and thick forests covered with hoarfrost. Here and there the occasional small cluster of huts could be seen at the edge of a narrow inlet, where fishing boats waited for a favorable wind.

After passing the northern tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands, the Football was again exposed to the open sea as it crossed Dixon Entrance, bounded on the north by Prince of Wales Island. The crossing took twenty-four hours, but since the wind had shifted around to the northeast and was now coming off the mainland, the pitching and rolling were less violent. Once it reached Prince of Wales Island, the ship would always be protected by a chain of islands and by the Sitka peninsula until it entered port at Skagway. They were now sailing on a river, as it were, rather than on the sea.

The name "Prince of Wales" applies to a whole complicated archipelago whose most northerly points are lost in a jumble of tiny islands. The capital of the main island is Shakan on the west coast, where ships can take refuge from the storms of the open sea.

Farther on lies Baranof Island, where the Russians built the fort of New Arkhangel, and whose principal town, Sitka, is also the capital of the whole territory of Alaska. When Alaska was sold by the Muscovite Empire to the United States, Sitka was not given back to Canada or to British Columbia, but remained in American hands.

The first Canadian port that the Football passed was Port Simpson, on the coast of British Columbia at the end of Dixon Entrance, but it did not stop there nor at the port of Jackson on the southernmost island of the Prince of Wales group.

While the forty-ninth parallel forms the boundary between Canada and the United States a little south of Vancouver, the longitude separating Alaska from Canada will have to be clearly drawn across the gold bearing territories of the north. Who can tell whether, in some more or less distant future, there may not be grounds for dispute between the flag of Great Britain and the fifty-one-star flag of the United States of America?'

On the morning of April 24 the Football docked at the port of Wrangell, at the mouth of the Stikine River. At that time, the town consisted of only about forty houses, a few active sawmills, a hotel, a casino, and some gambling houses that kept very busy during the season.

At Wrangell they parted company with the miners who wanted to go to the Klondike via Telegraph Creek rather than by crossing the lakes on the other side of Skagway. They would have some 170 miles to cover under the most difficult conditions, although the cost would be lower. About fifty immigrants left the ship, determined to face danger and exhaustion crossing the endless plains of northern British Columbia

After they left Wrangell the channels became narrower and more winding. The vessel slipped through a veritable labyrinth of little islands. A Dutchman might have thought he was in the middle of the maze of Zeeland, but he would soon have returned to harsh reality on feeling the bitter arctic wind whistling around him, seeing the whole archipelago buried under a thick layer of snow, and hearing the roar of avalanches thundering down into the fjords from the height of the coastal cliffs. A Russian would have found the situation quite normal because he would have been at the same latitude as St. Petersburg.

It was just off Mary's Island, near Fort Simpson, that the Football left behind the last American customs office. At Wrangell, the ship was once again in Canadian waters,7 and although a number of passengers had disembarked to continue their journey by land, they had been warned that the route was not yet negotiable by sled.

The steamboat, meanwhile, pressed on toward Skagway through increasingly narrow channels, following the coast of the rugged mainland. After passing the mouth of the Taku River, it stopped for several hours at Juneau, which was still only a village on the way to becoming a town.

To the name of Joe Juneau, who founded it about 1882, must be added that of Richard Harris. Two years earlier, they had discovered the gold deposits of Silver Bow Basin, which yielded twelve million dollars in nuggets a few months later.

That period saw the first influx of miners attracted by reports of this discovery and of the work going on in the gold fields to the north of Telegraph Creek, before the Klondike gold rush began. Since that day, the Treadwille Mine, with 240 pestles at work, has crushed up to 1500 tons of quartz every twenty-four hours, yielding over five hundred thousand dollars' worth of gold. A hundred years of mining would still not exhaust its supply.

When Ben Raddle told him about the good luck miners were having in that region, Summy Skim replied, "It's too bad our uncle's claim wasn't on the Taku River instead of on the Fortymile."

"Why is that?"

"Because then we wouldn't have to go all the way to Skagway."

If it had only been a matter of getting to Skagway, of course, there would have been nothing to complain about. The Football would be there the next day. But their real difficulties and extreme hardships would begin then, when they would have to go through the Chilkoot Pass and make their way across the lakes to the left bank of the Yukon River.

And yet there they all were, those passengers, eager to be off the Football and to venture out into the region drained by the great Alaskan waterway. If they were thinking only about the future, it was not of its exertions, trials, dangers, and disappointments, but of the mirage that it held out before them.

Leaving Juneau behind, the steamer made its way up the Lynn Canal to Skagway, which is the end of the line for ships of a certain tonnage, although flat-bottomed boats can continue for another five miles to the village of Dyea. Off to the northwest was the shining Muir Glacier, 240 feet thick, whose thundering avalanches kept falling into the Pacific. A few boats manned by natives provided an escort for the Football, which took some of them in tow.

During the last night on board, the card room was the scene of a tre mendous game, during which some of the passengers who had been regular patrons during the voyage would lose everything, down to their last dollar. Not surprisingly, the two Texans, Hunter and Malone, were among the most avid of the players and especially the most violent. The others, whatever their nationality, were no better. They belonged to the same class of scoundrels as are usually to be found in the bars of Vancouver, Wrangell, Skagway, and Dawson City.

Up until now, it seemed, fortune had smiled on the two Texans. Since they had embarked on the Football in the port of Acapulco, their good luck at cards had brought them several thousands of piasters, or dollars.