Down the Yukon Read Online Free PDF Page B

twelve she lived at Fort Chipewyan, the Hudson Bay Company’s outpost way up on Lake Athabaska. Homer was a trader working with the Indians in those days.
    Arizona Charlie Meadows knew me on sight as Jamie’s friend. The famous marksman greeted me at his office door with a somber expression. I assumed it was because he was about to tell me what I already expected, that the Princess of the Klondike and the Princess of Dawson couldn’t perform on the same stage.
    â€œSit down, sit down,” the man in buckskins said with a deep, reverberating voice like far-off thunder. He took off his wide-brimmed hat, bowed his silver head, and said, “I have tragic news.”
    My God, I thought, she’s dead.
    Numb, I sank into the gilded chair he offered. Arizona Charlie looked out the window onto the frozen Yukon. Without turning to speak, he said at last, “I learned only days ago—a dog team got through from Skagway with the mails—that the poet has passed away.”
    â€œThe poet?” I repeated. For a moment I couldn’t think who in the world he was talking about.
    Then, of course, I knew. “You don’t mean Homer….”
    â€œI do indeed. His heart suddenly failed him. In Philadelphia, they say.”
    â€œWhat about Jamie?”
    The frontiersman’s eyes met mine. “I know nothing of her. I’m sorry. Nothing was mentioned of Jamie.”
    Arizona Charlie paused, then seated himself behind his desk. “Jamie is an extraordinary talent. I’m sure she’ll find work on the stage. Doubtless she’s already been flooded with offers. Don’t worry about her having plenty of friends and theater people to look out for her.”
    â€œBut she’ll come back here,” I heard myself saying aloud.
    Arizona Charlie looked at me and shrugged. “All the way to the ends of the earth? I wouldn’t think so.”
    I went mute, stunned as if he’d hit me with a fish club. I felt sorry for myself, but a minute later, walking away, it hit me all over again and I came to my senses. I felt sorry for Jamie.
    Â 
    At that very time, Ethan was in the midst of a colossal gambling binge. He’d lost his share in the Monte Carlo and was on his way to losing his piece of the claim on Eldorado Creek. My brother was a runaway train. He couldn’t stop whether he was winning or losing.
    Abraham knew all this was going on, but he couldn’t bear to hear about it. Anyway, he was busy trying to get Dawson City’s fire department back to work. Abe was the head of a citizen’s group fighting for higher wages for the firemen, who had been on strike since the first week of April. Dawson City was in jeopardy every single day they were on strike, as everyone in town, including the town council, knew full well. The department of a hundred men had been formed after the disastrous Thanksgiving fire only five months before.
    Half a million dollars in real estate had burned on Thanksgiving Day in a quick conflagration, and all that could be done to stop the blaze was to tear down businesses and cabins that were in its way. A fire in the spring of ’99 would be far more disastrous, Abraham pleaded to the council, but the council stood firm.
    The firemen retaliated by letting the fires under their boilers go out.
    Ethan’s last hand was dealt sometime during the evening of April 25. In all likelihood he hadn’t slept in several days. It was Silent Sam Bonnifield who cleaned him out, I learned the next morning from the men at the mill. Ever since Ethan had started gambling for high stakes, I’d stayed away. I didn’t have the stomach for it. A thousand times afterward, I wished I’d sought him out, given his addled brain a good swipe with a lead pipe, and dragged him home. I should’ve handcuffed him to his bed.
    After Ethan was cleaned out, he started on a drinking spree. When fire broke out the next night, April 26, on the second