"This is the place. Stand still, my steed, Let me review the scene, And summon from the Shadowy Past, The forms that once have been"-Longfellow

WHEN I first saw Yale, in July, 1858, it was a town of tents and shacks, and had a population of about 5,000 miners, traders and gamblers. A few months ago I stood on the townsite, and dwelt in memory upon past scenes and incidents. The population had dwindled to a few score, and most of the houses gave evidence of that decrepitude which is an accompaniment of age and infirmity. The population was entirely changed-not a soul remained of the busy multitude that moved and had their being at Yale forty-six years ago. Everything had altered save the cruel river, the everlasting hills and the rocky banks through which the stream rushes with impetuous velocity and sullen roar on its journey to the ocean.

As I moved along the road I came to a huge boulder upon which Kelly, the Australian barrister, and I, in the long ago were wont to recline and smoke our pipes, exchanging stories of our earlier life and speculating as to the future. I took a seat on the rock and my mind was soon busy with the past. As I mused it almost seemed as if my old time acquaintance sat by my side once more, and that we passed again through the exciting and melancholy episode which I am about to relate.

I recalled that one pleasant evening in July, 859, we two boon companions sat on this identical boulder and indulged in daydreams. The month was a dry and hot one, and vegetation in ad about Yale was scant and parched. The river had been very high in June, but was now falling rapidly, and the floating logs and trees which during the highest stage were borne swiftly towards the sea in vast numbers, were beginning to fall off, and at the time of which I write scarcely offered an obstruction to the navigation of the river by canoes and skiffs opposite and below the town. A mile or so above Yale the river rushes through a canyon or gorge, and the water, confined and constrained to narrow limits, becomes a foaming, seething torrent which o boat ever built could stem and no swimmer, not even a Leander, could breast.

As my companion and I sat quietly chatting on this particular evening we observed approaching us from the town four figures. As they came nearer the figures assumed the shape of men and women, two of each sex. All were very young, and the women, if not pretty, were at least interesting looking, very neat and trim in appearance, with their long hair hanging loose over the shoulders after the fashion of the time. The men wore new blanket coats, although the weather was warm. The girls were dressed in becoming print gowns and wore coquettish-looking straw hats. As the party approached our resting-place we rose and bared our heads. The young men also took off their hats and wished us good evening. Almost at once we seemed to become acquainted, and in ten minutes knew all about on another that was worth knowing.

The young men said they were brothers, named Gilman, from some place in Oregon. The young women were their wives-blushing brides only a few weeks previously. They had heard of the fabulous wealth of the Fraser River bars, and had come to try their fortunes, having arrived the day previous by canoe from Hope, sixteen miles farther down the river. There was something so ingenuous and confiding about the four that I took to them at once. Had they dined? No; they had pitched their tents a short time before, and were looking for a place were they could get a meal-all the eating houses being closed, as the hour was 8 o’clock. I invited them to my shack and soon slices of bacon were sizzling in the pan and the aroma of coffee filled the evening air with its fragrance.

After the meal the girls insisted upon washing the dishes, and, with the aid of a candle stuck in a potato they soon had put everything to rights, and the pots and pans were ready for the next meal. Then we all sat down in the evening air and discussed prospects.

The Gilman boys were full of hope and expectation. They had come to Fraser River to mine and make a fortune, and then go back to Oregon and invest the money in farms. Such a thing as failure did not enter into their thoughts. If some men could make money at mining why should not others? and, again, why should they not be among the others? The wives would keep house for them while they mined and take care of the gold as it was son. The programme was an attractive one, and it had captivated these young people.

At an early hour the visitors took their leave and retired to their tents, which they had pitched not far away. In the morning, bright and early, I heard a clear soprano voice singing the glorious hymn,

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in the."

As the notes rose and fell and then rose again and floated away in the crisp mountain air, my mind carried me back to a home in the far-away East where that hymn was often sung by a voice quavering with age, and which has long since been hushed on earth, but which, I trust, has joined the choir invisible in another and a better land.

"Kelly," asked I, "do you hear the voice?"

"Faith, I do," replied he, "and it’s mighty refreshing to listen to the sound of Christian worship in this heathen country."

Tossing aside his blankets he hurried into his clothes and went outside to reconnoitre. The singing by this time had ceased, and we could see the four young people seated about a rude table in front of their tent partaking of an early breakfast. Having completed our own repast we walked over to our neighbors’ tents. The men had gone to town, leaving the girls to clear away and wash up the dishes, which they were now doing.

After a few brief words about the weather, Kelly ventured to ask which of the two was the vocalist.

"We both sing a little," replied the elder sister. "Our father is a Methodist clergyman, and we used to sing in his choir."

"Oh!" said I, "the voice that I heard this morning enchanted me. It carried me thousands of miles away and landed me in the midst of my home circle."

"It was Bertha who sang this morning," said the younger of the two. "My name is Caroline."

"Well," said Kelly, "if she can sing like that she ought to go to London-such voices are in demand there at a big figure."

At this moment the young men returned. They were in high glee. They had brought a Chinook canoe for a small sum, and were making arrangements to go through the canyons to the gold diggings above, for which they would start in a few days. During the night it had been arranged that the wives should go back to Oregon ad there await the coming of their lords, who fully expected to have made their fortunes by the fall. Poor fellows! I wonder how many others ascended Fraser River in those memorable days in chase of an ignis fatuus which they ever had in view but never overtook.

That evening one of the girls produced a guitar, and she and her sister sang several touching hymns; but I can only now remember two, "Rock of Ages," and "Flee as a Bird." They were lovely singers, and their voices attracted an audience of many miners and a few women, who listened with interest and pleasure to the sweet strains, frequently manifesting their approval by clapping.

As the days dragged on Kelly and I passed many happy hours in the company of the Gilmans, and grew to like them very much. All four were quite unsophisticated, having been brought up in a small village, but they were very ice and kind and well bred. One evening they invited us to supper. The "table" was a packing case, which was covered with newspapers in lieu of clot. The girls sat on a tall trunk, while we four men reclined on the ground, and many were the jocose remarks indulged in by the company at the odd situation. After supper we had some music. Kelly proposed a game of whist, but our hosts and hostesses could not play cards. The next day but one the young fellows were to start for the canyons, taking with them a supply of provisions and tools. The evening before they got away they were entertained at our tent. Kelly had got some pork chops-the only variety of fresh meat in the market-and garnished with onions and beans they were served up. At the very first mouthful one of the ladies turned pale, gasped and hurried into the bush. The second lady, who had also taken a mouthful, followed her sister immediately.

"What in the world’s the matter with them?" asked Kelly. I, who by this time had tasted the meat, exclaimed, "Why, the pork’s fishy-the beasts were fed on salmon!"

And so it turned out. The keeper of the herd had fed the swine upon fish, and the result was the nastiest dish that could be placed before human beings. Did the reader ever taste fishy pork? If you have, I pity your sensations. If you have not, don’t.

Our supper was spoiled, of course, but we managed to scare up some bacon and made up a meal on that with bread and butter and slapjacks.

In the morning early the Gilman boys got off. I did not see them go, but they voiced a cheery good-bye as they passed our tent, to which we replied by shouting, "Cheer, boys, cheer!" The packing had been done over night, and the girls had arranged for a passage in "Delaware" Insley’s canoe to Hope, where they were to embark in Capt. Wright’s steamer Enterprise for Victoria. Something occurred that prevented them leaving on that day, and they took quarters in Mrs. Weaver’s hotel for the night. We had agreed to see them off in the morning, and had risen early.

I was busy with the fire outside the tent when I heard a footstep approaching on the trail. I looked up, and presently I saw a sight that filled me with alarm. Near me was one of the Gilmans-wan, ragged, and in a complete state of collapse. he almost at my feet he buried his face in his hands and great sobs shook his fare while he groaned in anguish and despair

"Kelly," cried I, completely unmanned, "come here, quick."

Kelly was quickly out of bed, and took in the situation at a glance. He saw a fellow-being in distress. Now at Kelly’s panacea for all ills was brandy, just as some mothers’ ever ready remedy when anything goes wrong with the children is a dose of castor oil.

"My God!" he exclaimed as he flew back into the tent, quickly returning with a bottle of his panacea. He raised the forlorn youth’s head, and forced a few drops of the fiery fluid into his mouth. In a few minutes the boy calmed down, and between his disjointed sentences and incoherent utterances we at last learned that while poling the canoe through one of the riffles in the canyon the day previous the frail craft struck a rock and was split in two. The narrator said he contrived to lay hold of one of the pieced, but his brother disappeared beneath the foam, and was seen no more. The survivor floated on the fragment into an eddy and at last got ashore in an exhausted state, and crawled back to our tent.

His grief was pitiful to behold, and while we were doing all in our power to relieve his distress, he was naturally greatly concerned to devise means for breaking the news to the girls. Kelly was at length deputed to tell them, and the boy and I followed then minutes later. When we reached Mrs. Weaver’s the girls were in tears and quite hysterical. Both rushed into the boy’s arms, and sobbed as though their hearts would break. The rough miners gathered around, and many eyes were moistened at the spectacle of human misery. Bertha (the drowned boy was her husband) was in a state of complete prostration. Her sister, forgetting her own grief, attempted to soothe her by quoting a few appropriate lines from Scripture, and Mrs. Weaver besought her to remember that in the violence of her grief another life might be imperiled. It was some time before we could bring them to realize that to longer remain on the river would be folly-besides, their money was running short, and we promised that if the body of the lost one should float down we would accord it a Christian burial. The steamer Enterprise was announced to leave Hope for Victoria the next day at noon, and it was decided that the party should leave by canoe early the next morning.

One of the most reckless and profane men on the river at that time was Dave Bennett, who kept a gambling house on Yale flat. Gambling of every description was carried on openly, and many were the miners who were inveigled into the dens and stripped of their dust. Farro, three-card monte, keno, chuck-a-luck, and all other imaginable games of skill or chance were carried out without remark that gambling made the camp lively. I remember one evil-visaged wretch who presided over the chuck-a-luck table, which is a game played with loaded dice. It is so simple that a greeny, who is sure that he can win, soon finds to his sorrow that he can only do so when the operator wills. I saw a man named Evans lose $1,300 at this very game one evening in 1858. Fortunately he was not a miner, but a well-to-do man from San Francisco, so he got very little sympathy. I saw another man who had come up the river with a wife and three children deprived of every cent. Bennett returned him $20 to pay his way out of the country.

There was a man named "Major" Dolan who was accustomed to hang about Bennett’s. He was a little fellow, gut was apparently full of grit and wickedness. Rumor has it that he had been a pirate. To amuse himself he would sometimes fire off his revolver point-blank at the stores and houses, not caring if any one should be struck by the bullets, and there were several narrow escapes from death ad injury from the same cause.

On main street of Yale, Dolan, Bennett and other gamblers arranged a scheme to secure the money of a merchant named Emerson. He was an elderly man and, having sold his stock to advantage, was preparing to leave the river with a considerable sum-about $4,000, I think. The villains hired a room and ran a partition across the rear from side to side. In the bottom of this partition they put a shifting plank. In front of the partition they placed a table for the dealer, and on the table they set a faro box, the cards in which were manipulated in full view of the players. Now, behind the partition was concealed a confederate whose duty it was to stock a second faro box. When the bets had al been mad the banker at the table, by a species of sleight-of-hand, would pass his box to the confederate, who would, in turn, pass up the prepared box from behind the partition, and the bank would rake in the money. It is scarcely necessary to say that Emerson was deprived of all his wealth in one night, and left the camp impoverished and miserable.

One night there was a great commotion on the flat. A man while passing from his tent to a store had been set upon, beaten and robbed. His calls for "help" were heard, but the night was pitch dark, and those who hurried to the scene of the shooting were unable to see their hands if held before their faces. I joined in the rush, and after groping my was through the darkness reached the victim’s side. He had been badly choked, and all that he could manage to articulate was "The Major, the Major." Of course everybody imagined at once that the culprit was Major Dolan, and a search for him was instituted with lanterns and naked candles. At least he as discovered standing at the bar of Bennett’s house. The crowd poured in, and one of the party, named Conger-a short, stocky Canadian, of great strength and quiet demeanor-laid a hand on the Major’s shoulder.

Dolan swung quickly round with the exclamation, "What do you mean?"

"I mean that we want you," replied Conger, as the crowd closed in upon the two.

"Take your hand off, see!" yelled Dolan, and quick as thought he whipped out a revolver and pointed it at Conger’s head. The crowd fell back. Mobs are always cowardly. Conger alone stood his ground.

"Get back," shouted Dolan, "or I’ll kill you-see!"

Conger kept his eye full on Dolan’s, and quietly said:"You had better come with me."

"If I had you in the States I’d make a colander of your body," shouted the Major.

Conger laid his hand upon the revolver between the nipple and the cock, so that were the trigger pulled the cap would not explode. To the surprise of everyone Dolan yielded without another word, and Conger made him a prisoner. He could not endure the fire of Conger’s eye. The Major spent several days in jail, but nothing could be proved against him. He shortly afterwards left the river, his reputation as a dangerous man having vanished when he surrendered so tamely.

The year before coming to Yale Conger had visited the Holy Land, and he never tired of relating his experiences there. He was an odd genius, but a very good man and a devout Christian.

Now it happened that Dave Bennett, having made much money through the Emerson and other deals, decided to take a trip to California, and it also happened that he had engaged the only canoe that was available for the trip to California, and it also happened that he had engaged the only canoe that was available for the trip to Hope on the day that the Gilmans wished to descend. I saw Bennett about taking the Gilman party down. He was full of sympathy, although a hard, rough man, ad agreed to hand them over to Capt. Wright at Hope without charging a cent. So they all embarked in the canoe at the river front, two Indians acting as the crew. Instead of starting at the hour agreed upon, Bennett said good-bye to so many friends that he got drunk, and detained the canoe until darkness had early set in. Navigation between Yale and Hope is always dangerous, even in broad daylight. I darkness it is doubly so. On this occasion the river was in an ugly frame of mind, a slight rise having taken place, and many trees were passing down. As the canoe moved away Kelly and I took an affectionate and tearful farewell of the little party of friends. We kissed the girls, and pressed the boy’s hands till they must have ached. The last I saw of Bennett he sat near the stern with a black bottle at his lips and waving his hat to his boon companions on shore. The poor girls waved their tear-stained handkerchiefs to us as the boat swung around Sawmill riffle, and the party passed from view forever!

What happened after the canoe went out of sight will never be known by mortal man. The next day "Delaware," on his way up from Hope, found a paddle floating in an eddy, and presently a black felt hat. He brought both to Yale. Someone said the hat was Dave Bennett’s, and when "Delaware" was told of the departure of the canoe with Bennett and the girls the day before, he said that the party had not reached Hope when he left there. The greatest possible interest was aroused to ascertain the fate of the party, and Indians in canoes were dispatched to examine the river banks and bars. They returned in a day or so with a roll of blankets and a woman’s straw hat-the last having been worn by one of the girls.

Some weeks after the party had disappeared, and while the sad event which had hurried those bright young people and that sin-worn man into untimely graves was still fresh in my mind, an Indian came to me with a strange story. He said that about twenty "suns" (days) before he was coming up the river when he saw standing on the shore near Texas Bar, on the opposite bank to where he was, a young white klootchman (woman). She seemed in great distress, and was crying bitterly, wringing her hands and screaming. The Indian said that he had to pass around a bend of the river before he cam to a place where there was a safe crossing. He lost sight of the woman for a few moments, and when he had crossed and come again in view of the spot where she had stood she was not to be seen, not could he find any trace of her having been there except the marks of small feet in the sand. Asked as to the color of her dress, he pointed to a blue flannel shirt which I wore and said, "all the same as that." He added that she had long black hair that streamed over her shoulders. Bertha Gilman wore a blue dress, and had long black hair! My theory has always been that Bennett, I his drunken antics, upset the frail boat and that all found a watery grave except Bertha, who managed to get ashore and went mad from exposure and grief. When she saw the Indian approaching, the unfortunate girl plunged into the river and was borne away by the swift current.

Many years afterwards, while seated in the smoking apartment of a Northern Pacific sleeper, I told this melancholy story of early adventure. One of my listeners was a middle-aged man from Oregon. He told me that he was a little boy when the Gilmans went to Fraser River, and he remembered well the consternation and grief that was caused in their respective families by their strange and unaccountable silence. "This is the first initiation," he added,

"I have ever had of their fate. The fathers and mothers on both sides are long since dead, and I fancy that there are no relatives of the lost people now resident in their home town."

The whistle of an approaching train aroused me from my reverie. Kelly and his pipe vanished, ad as I rose from the boulder I took a long look at the cruel canyon and the wild waters that foamed and dashed against its narrow sides. Then I knocked the ashes out of my pipe, returned my spectacles to their case, heaved a deep sigh, and turned my back upon the scene of one of the most eventful incidents of my eventful life. "So runs the world away."

THE END

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