Free Down the Yukon by Will Hobbs Page A

journey?”
    â€œFourteen days up the Yukon from St. Michael, after an ocean voyage of three weeks, on the Ohio. We sailed the fourth of May.”
    â€œWhere did you sail from?”
    â€œSeattle—I was thinking of you.”
    â€œWere the seas rough?”
    â€œDon’t I still look green? Imagine a steamer with seven hundred souls aboard tossed around like a toy! We were caught by a spring storm in the Gulf of Alaska and thrown off course. It’s a wonder we didn’t end up in Japan.”
    â€œSeven hundred people? Where were they going—not to Dawson City?”
    â€œTo Nome! Stampeding to Nome!”
    â€œStop, I’m ill. Seven hundred to Nome—I was hoping to stake a claim on the beach.”
    â€œIt had better be a long beach. A tent city has sprung up—I saw a photograph—and prospectors are at work with sluice boxes and rockers along the beach and all the nearby creeks. I was tempted just to go see it. It’s like the Klondike all over again, only no need to cross mountains and build boats and float a river.”
    â€œThey don’t talk about Dawson City anymore?”
    â€œExcept to say it’s no place to get rich. This time lastyear, people wore buttons that said YES, I’M GOING. This year, the word ‘Klondike’ is synonymous with folly. To brush someone off, instead of saying something like, ‘Go peddle your papers,’ people say, ‘Aw, go to the Klondike.’”
    â€œBut you came….”
    I meant to say it full of feeling, but it came out like a dying duck in a thunderstorm. I wanted those three words to say that I loved her. I was half certain that in response she would profess that she’d come these thousands of miles solely for my sake.
    I thought she might take my hand, but she didn’t. Jamie glanced at me, avoiding a full meeting of the eyes, and her gaze went out onto the river, where the swells of the Yukon rolled swiftly downstream. “My heart remains in the Northland,” she said with an enigmatic smile, and stood up briskly.
    I was left with the awful uncertainty of wondering if it was the North she’d returned for, or for me. If it was both, what percentage of her heart did I have a claim to?
    At a loss, I asked, “What’s that parchment in your hand?”
    â€œOh, this! It was posted on the boat. By now they must be plastered all over Dawson City.”
    It was a poster that she unrolled. Its headline proclaimed THE GREAT RACE.
    â€œWhat is it, Jamie?”
    â€œA race from Dawson City to Nome. It’s the Alaska Commercial Company’s answer to the N.A.T.’s breakup lottery. Isn’t it exciting? Here, I’ll read it to you. I know it almost from memory:
    â€œThe Alaska Commercial Company announces the Great Race from the riverbank at Dawson City, Canada, to its warehouse in Nome, Alaska.Attention, all those who would compete in the greatest marathon the world has ever seen, from the established gold capital of the North to its new twin on the Bering Sea.
    â€œIf you would brave all comers and conditions for the prize of $20,000, register with the Alaska Commercial Company in Dawson City anytime up to the firing of the starting gun at noon three days after the first steamboat bearing this news reaches our representatives at the mouth of the Klondike River, namely Dawson City.
    â€œTo enter, contestants must contribute a $50 nonrefundable entry fee to the prize. Any shortfall between fees collected and the $20,000 prize is to be paid for by the sponsor, the Alaska Commercial Company.
    â€œRules are as follows:
    â€œ1) Two-man teams only. If more than the two who are registered for the race are in the craft, they may not assist locomotion of the craft.
    â€œ2) The same pair that begins the race must finish, with no substitutions en route.
    â€œ3) Contestants may travel by water, land, or air.”
    â€œLand!” I interrupted. “There