Now it happened that the break of spring was at hand, and many of the
principal citizens of Dawson were travelling south on the last ice. These
he met and talked with, noted their names and possessions, and passed on.
He had a good memory, also a fair imagination; nor was veracity one of
his virtues.
II
Dawson, always eager for news, beheld Montana Kid's sled heading down the
Yukon, and went out on the ice to meet him. No, he hadn't any
newspapers; didn't know whether Durrant was hanged yet, nor who had won
the Thanksgiving game; hadn't heard whether the United States and Spain
had gone to fighting; didn't know who Dreyfus was; but O'Brien? Hadn't
they heard? O'Brien, why, he was drowned in the White Horse; Sitka
Charley the only one of the party who escaped. Joe Ladue? Both legs
frozen and amputated at the Five Fingers. And Jack Dalton? Blown up on
the "Sea Lion" with all hands. And Bettles? Wrecked on the
"Carthagina," in Seymour Narrows,--twenty survivors out of three hundred.
And Swiftwater Bill? Gone through the rotten ice of Lake LeBarge with
six female members of the opera troupe he was convoying.
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