Jason's Gold by Will Hobbs Read Free Book Online Page A

ten dollars apiece.
    Jason waited in front of two different packing offices, hoping to ask if and when his brothers had hired their services. But there were so many men trying to get inside, he finally gave up and kept walking. Another two blocks and Broadway ran smack into someone’s house, a tidy two-story frame structure that had obviously been there for a number of years.
    There was a huge commotion under way. One old man armed with a crowbar was trying to stand off a hundred. They’d come to move his house out of the way of the street, and he’d already ripped a leg off a fellow’s trousers while defending his property. The old man kept claiming that every bit of the town was being illegally erected on his property, but he was met by nothing but jeers.
    â€œI’m Captain William Moore,” he cried, “and all of you are trespassing! All this ground you’re standing on belongs to me .”
    Jason kept moving, following the Klondikers who were streaming around the old man’s house and out of town. He didn’t care if he never laid eyes on Skagway again.
    It would be dark in a couple of hours. He had to find something to eat and somewhere to sleep. He passed a dozen “restaurants” along the wagon road leading out of town—stampeders cooking at their Klondike stoves and selling meals. Ahead, the wagon road was about to make its first crossing of the Skagway River. He was hoping there’d be salmon running in that river.
    And there were.
    Jason wasn’t the only one with the idea. Like bears, men were standing in the river and fishing out salmon—some with their hands, some with spears whittled from the alders along the shore.
    In a little while Jason had a salmon. He had a salmon and a jackknife and he had matches in a waterproof match safe. The night before, he’d watched how the Indians spread their salmon open with whittled sticks and roasted them upright beside the campfire. He did the same and ate his fill, then went looking for berries. They were plentiful. Salmon and berries: For the time being, he was living the life of an Alaskan bear.
    It was drizzling again. Jason got back on the wagonroad and started walking. He was going to find a stand of spruces thick enough to keep the rain off while he was sleeping. He needed to keep his bedroll dry.
    There was a wall tent ahead that had been erected beside the road. He saw a sign and thought it might be advertising another restaurant. But there was a bad stink in the air, like carrion. As he drew closer, he realized to his horror that the sign had been placed at the foot of a pole where a man had been tied up, then shot repeatedly. The sign by the corpse said THIEF .
    All the while the people went streaming by. Like the rest, he kept on going.

EIGHT
    In the morning Jason rejoined the river of humanity streaming along the wagon road. He made good time as the road stayed to the valley floor, but after three miles the valley pinched to a close against the rising mountains and the wagon road came to an abrupt end. At the river crossing, freight wagons were unloading and Klondikers by the hundreds were transferring their gear to horseback.
    As it began to rain again, Jason stopped for a minute and surveyed the confusion. A few of the horses looked all right, but most were in deplorable condition. From his own horse-packing experience in Wyoming, it was apparent that most of the stampeders had never worked with a horse in their lives. It pained him to see men putting pack saddles on backward, some not even using saddle blankets. Worse than that, some men were so angry, they were terrifying the horses with curses and even whips.
    Suddenly it occurred to Jason that he was looking at his meal ticket, his big opportunity. These horses , he thought. These horses can feed me until I catch up to my brothers!
    He watched for a while longer, then picked out a pair of men struggling in frustration. At least these two