by Howard Blum
“Soapy” Smith is not a dangerous man, and not a desperado. He will fight to very good purpose if he must, but he is not in the least quarrelsome. Cool in the presence of danger, absolutely fearless, honorable in the discharge of those obligations which he recognizes, generous with his money, and ever ready with a helping hand for a man or a woman in distress.… Not the least amusing trait of “Soapy” Smith’s character is the eager interest which he takes in the preservation of law and order.
But while Soapy could fool some of the people, he couldn’t fool all of them. Oscar Dunbar, the editor and owner of the newly created Daily Alaskan newspaper, had no tolerance for Soapy’s activities. He ran a series of articles warning newcomers about rigged shell games on the White Pass Trail and the “pack of tin horn gamblers” under Soapy’s control.
When Soapy had just about enough of the insults, he paid a call on the editor. “I’m sure you’re wrong about Soapy Smith,” he explained as he shook Dunbar’s hand, “because I’m Soapy himself.” With his easy charm, he then offered a proposition. Soapy would pay $50 an issue to keep his name out of the Alaskan. “That shouldn’t be hard to do for that price, should it?” Soapy suggested lightly.
“It shouldn’t be,” Dunbar agreed.
To seal the arrangement, later that afternoon a gang member delivered two bottles of Mumm extra dry champagne and a box of Havana cigars to the editor. “With Mr. Smith’s compliments,” the burly messenger explained.
Without skipping a beat, the editor picked up the edition of the Alaskan that had just rolled off the presses. “To Mr. Smith, with the compliments of Mr. Dunbar,” he said as he handed over the newspaper.
Soapy was livid when he read its editorial detailing how he’d tried to bribe the editor. For a few rough moments he no doubt recalled the thrashing he’d given Colonel Arkins in Denver when that editor had proved insolent. But soon Soapy, who prided himself on learning from his experiences, came up with a more efficient plan. He approached Billy Saportas, a reporter for the paper, and put him on the payroll. After that, the Alaskan, at least in Saportas’s dispatches, took to singing Soapy’s praises.
A few of the gang complained that Soapy was wasting his money. Why pay Saportas when a bullet would quiet Dunbar at a much lower cost? But Soapy shrugged off the expense. Reputation was crucial; it was the bricks upon which his power rested. Besides, the money he was spending was the down payment on the bright future that was shaping up at last for Mary and him.
THIRTY-EIGHT
ll through the fall and winter, as the first stampeders rushed north and Soapy established himself in Skagway, George continued to work his site. There was so much to do that he hired a dozen men to help with the underground digging and paid them in gold dust; that way he was able to keep his operation going around the clock. It reminded him of his time at the Treadwell mine where the work had also been divided into shifts. Only now George Carmack was the boss. It was his mine. And it was his gold.
Each day, as another big haul of gold-bearing gravel was added to the dump, he felt that he was getting closer to achieving his dream. In his mind he pictured himself in a well-pressed city suit, the chain of a pocket watch dangling across his waistcoat, a big Havana cigar between his lips, and there he’d be striding into Rose’s parlor.
Increasingly he sought refuge in an imagined future. Its possibility became the answer to everything. There was no longer any harmony with Kate. He dismissed her as a tyrant, a shrill squaw unworthy of his companionship.
Kate couldn’t understand his behavior. She had no appreciation of the transforming power of greed or how the white man measured success. She was simply angry and hurt. In her resentment, she attacked.
One Sunday afternoon Ed Conrad, a miner who had a nearby claim, heard screams. It sounded to him like a woman calling for help, and he rushed over to the Carmack cabin. He found Kate outside, yelling in Tagish as if intent on alerting the whole countryside.
A moment later George walked out of the woods hauling a sled loaded down with firewood.
“What’s going on?” Conrad asked with concern.
“Oh, that woman,” George answered lightly, a man accustomed to this sort of drama. “She’s just telling me no wood, no fire, no dinner. She thinks her screaming will make me move faster.”
In a letter later that winter to Rose, he complained, “My wife had more work than she could do all winter but she is getting too high toned to work now.”
Though they were surrounded by great riches, their life on Bonanza Creek had turned into a living hell.
YET EVEN with all his newfound wealth, George was not the richest man in the Yukon. It was the latecomers who’d no choice but to stake Eldorado Creek who reaped the most fantastic fortunes.
There was Antone Stander, for example, a twenty-nine-year-old immigrant from Austria. Stander had worked his way across the continent as a cowboy, sheepherder, farmer, and coal miner before deciding to head to the far north to try his luck at prospecting. Only he didn’t have any luck; two years of looking for gold left him dead broke. When he heard about Carmack’s find, he rushed up to Bonanza. But he was too late; the creek had already been staked. On an impulse, he decided to explore the country beyond Carmack’s site. As the creek twisted south, he followed it into a wooded ravine. Absently, he stuck a pan into the water: The gravel was laced with gold! That afternoon he measured off a claim that would be worth more than $4 million.
As soon as Stander started working the creek, other veterans began to take notice. Jay Whipple, an old sourdough who’d gone broke searching in vain for years in the rough country around Sixtymile; Frank Keller, who’d been a brakeman for the railroad in California; J. J. Clements, who’d earned the money for his passage north by carrying the mail on horseback; William Johns, a rough-and-tumble former newspaper reporter from Chicago—all struck it rich on Eldorado Creek.
Even the bartender from Bill McPhee’s saloon made a killing on Eldorado Creek—without leaving the barroom. Once Stander had staked his claim, he needed supplies to get him through the winter. Clarence Berry helped him out, and got half of Stander’s claim in return. It was more an act of kindness than a business deal, yet the bartender wound up making several million dollars from the transaction.
The yield on Bonanza was not as rich; nevertheless, George was not the only prospector to find his fortune along its banks. Louis Rhodes worked a claim a mile or so above George’s. After two disappointing months of shoveling through icy muck, he was ready to sell out. He wanted $250 for his claim, only he couldn’t find any takers. So he reluctantly kept at it. When he finally reached bedrock, he scooped golden nuggets out of the clay by the handful.
Farther up the creek were the three Scouse brothers. They’d worked in the Pennsylvania coal mines before heading to the Yukon, so they had no misgivings about digging underground. And with the three brothers working in shifts, it didn’t take them long to hit bedrock. Only the pay streak seemed to elude them. Day after day, they’d fill big buckets with gravel, but when they washed the loads they found nothing but dirt. Then, on a guess, they cross-cut in another direction. When they hoisted the first bucket up on the windlass, there was no need to pan the contents. Gold nuggets lay sprinkled over the gravel like shells on a beach. They would make over $1 million from their claim.
But of all the old sourdoughs who struck it rich, “Big Alex” McDonald, the King of the Klondike, was the shrewdest. When the news of George’s strike spread through the Yukon Valley, McDonald didn’t have a dime. He was determined, however, not to miss out on an opportunity he knew would be his one chance to turn his life around. So he managed to buy a load of groceries on credit, and then he traded the supplies to a down-on-his luck sourdough for half of a claim on the Eldorado. Next, he leased out a section of his half stake to a group of miners for a percentage of their take. He used the proceeds from this “lay,” as the practice came to be known, for the down payment on another claim. He continued borrowing to purchase more claims
and then leasing them, too. As soon as money came in from one site, he’d use it to make another transaction. He never sold. Within a year, he had interests in twenty-eight claims, and his holdings were worth about $10 million.
Still, no one had forgotten the man whose discovery had started it all. In the Dawson saloons, the sourdoughs would raise their tipsy voices and sing a heartfelt tribute to the man who had changed the course of their lives:
George Carmack on Bonanza Creek went
Out to look for gold,
I wonder why, I wonder why.
Old-timers said it was no use, the water was too cold.
I wonder why, I wonder why.
They said that he might search that
Creek until the world did end
And not enough of gold he’d find a postage stamp to send.
They said the willows on the creek the other way would bend.
I wonder why, I wonder why.
After the second winter’s dump was sluiced, in the spring of 1898, George, accompanied by the two rifle-toting Indians for protection, brought the gold into Dawson to be assayed. He found that his take, after the 5 percent tax taken by the Canadian authorities, was worth about $224,000. He could now go home.
His intention was not to leave Bonanza Creek permanently. There remained a lot more gold to dig up. He’d simply shut the mine down for a spell. And rather than worry about what Kate and his partners were up to, he decided he’d be better off taking them with him. They could stay in Seattle while he traveled south to surprise Rose in Modesto.
But as George began making these plans, a great anxiety came over him. There were no secrets in the north. Everyone in Dawson had heard that he’d taken nearly a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of gold out of his claim. Up in the Yukon, the Mounties had a steady control of the territory; he didn’t worry much about robbers swooping in to steal the gold he’d mined over the past two years. It wouldn’t take long, though, before the word would’ve spread down to Alaska, and the American district was sheer lawlessness.
Alaska, George imagined, was seething with people who’d jump at the opportunity to steal a fortune of gold. Its port cities were filled with the sort of desperadoes who wouldn’t hesitate to cut a man’s throat to get what they wanted. He tried to control a sudden surge of panic, but it was no use. He’d heard a story about a prospector who had washed out $30,000 worth of gold, and then became so plagued by the fear of being robbed that he shot himself. For the first time, George understood how the man’s mind had skidded out of control. It was truly worrisome. He knew his gold wouldn’t be out of danger until it was locked in the safe of a boat steaming to Seattle.
THIRTY-NINE
harlie Siringo was in Vancouver in pursuit of a bunco artist who had sold a salted Mexican gold mine when he received the telegram informing him that Hiram Schell had escaped. Charlie had been working the phony-mine case for nearly six months; the trail had first led him up to Fort Steele, in British Columbia, then down to northern California, where, posing as a rich Texan, he’d discovered that the crook had used his profits from the caper to buy a sprawling ranch near an Indian village on Canada’s Alberni Canal. With the sense that the end of a long chase was finally approaching, Charlie had hurried north and checked into a Vancouver hotel. In the morning, he’d board a steamer for the three-day trip up to Alberni. But tonight he’d been looking forward to sitting down in front of a beefsteak and a bottle of whiskey before tucking himself into a comfortable bed, until the clerk had handed him the telegram.
It was from McParland. The superintendent, never a man to waste words, was particularly terse even for him: Schell escaped. Apprehend.
Standing by the front desk, Charlie studied the message, poring over the three words as if they contained a hidden clue. But no further information was revealed; only a string of questions took shape.
There was no explanation of how Schell had gotten away. Or when. Or where he’d fled. Charlie had no idea if the fugitive was hiding out in Alaska or had run off to the States. For all Charlie knew, Schell might even be in Vancouver at this very moment. And what was Charlie supposed to do about the case in which he was presently engaged? Abandon it, and chase after Schell? Or would it make more sense, since he was so close, to continue on to Alberni, nab his man, and then proceed to locate Schell? Of course, by then there’d be no telling where Schell might’ve gone. Whatever trail he’d left would’ve surely grown cold. McParland’s instructions were infuriatingly vague. The more Charlie thought it through, the more he began to suspect that this was deliberate. The superintendent was leaving it up to him to decide what to do next.
Charlie mulled the situation. As he did, a series of recollections passed through his memory in a flash: his elation at finally solving the puzzle behind the missing Treadwell gold; the long hunt up and down the Alaska coast in the rainbow canoe; the camp at Chieke Bay where he’d won the confidence of the two thieves; and Schell in handcuffs, the hulking bear of a man surly and defiant, vowing to break out of jail and even the score. And without Charlie’s summoning it, in that same instant another image intruded: Mamie. He’d traveled through a despairing time, but in Alaska he’d managed to reach a reconciliation of sorts with all he had lost. As much as any of the events that had shaped the long case, that struggle, too, had been an indelible part.
There was no point in lingering any longer with these memories, Charlie decided as if jolted. A course of action had become clear. He turned his gaze back toward the hotel clerk. Book me a ticket to Juneau, he ordered. I want to leave as soon as possible.
TWO DAYS later, as a thin drizzle fell and the air held a warmth that confirmed the spring thaw had arrived, Charlie disembarked in Juneau. Walking down the wharf, he recognized that his predicament was troublingly similar to the one he had faced when he’d first arrived in Alaska more than three years ago. Back then he’d come to solve a theft on a island where a robbery was impossible and there were hundreds of suspects. He’d had neither a clue nor a plan. Now he had to find a resourceful escaped convict who could’ve vanished into the deep northern wilderness or, no less likely, hopped a steamer for Seattle. Either way, it’d be a daunting manhunt without a single lead to point him in any direction. And once again, Charlie had no well-thought-out strategy to guide him.
All he’d come up with in the course of the voyage from Vancouver was a notion to start off at the U.S. marshal’s office. He knew that government lawmen dismissed private detectives as nothing but an interfering bunch of amateurs. Even if the marshal had any information, he’d likely be too wary to share it. But it was the only way Charlie could think of getting started. It’d have to do until he came up with a better idea.
As the detective trudged through the mud that covered Front Street, he couldn’t help noticing how much Juneau had changed since his last visit. It was bustling with crowded restaurants and busy supply stores, the good-time music from saloons and dance halls carrying out into the streets, and everywhere he looked there were beaming stampeders, the world their oyster because they were going off to strike it rich in the Yukon gold fields. Charlie had been in Denver when he’d read with interest the first report that a ship carrying a ton of gold had arrived in Seattle. But it was while he was on his way to Gazelle, the sleepy little town in northern California where the sister of the con man who had sold the phony Mexican mine lived, that he’d read the dispatch that had left him truly stunned. It stated that a prospector by the name of George Carmack had started the stampede with his strike on the Klondike River.
Charlie read it through twice and still had trouble believing it. The last time he’d seen Carmack had been on the beach by the Dyea inlet, and the man had been dressed like some ragtag Chinook. Now the paper was saying that Siwash George was a millionaire! Well, if it was true, Charlie reckoned he wouldn’t be one to begrudge Carmack his good fortune. The man had shown up in the nick of time in the stamp room at the Treadwell mine. Wasn’t for Carmack, he wouldn’t be able to draw his
old Colt with his right hand. He still owed the man a sizable debt, only there’d be nothing he’d ever be able to do for Carmack now. It seemed that these days the squawman had everything he needed. Well, more power to him, Charlie had silently cheered after reading the news. Since then he hadn’t given Carmack another thought. But being in boomtown Juneau, with the silhouettes of the Treadwell mine buildings looming across the channel, brought the whole episode racing back into his mind. Once again, Charlie felt only a surge of happiness at the thought of Carmack’s incredible success.
These reminiscences quickly receded, however, as the detective approached the marshal’s office. He located the small wood-frame building and strode up to the door. On the steamer, he’d prepared his speech. He’d explain that he was the Pinkerton who had originally arrested Schell and that he was determined to bring him in again. Any information the marshal had on the fugitive’s whereabouts would be much appreciated. That was it, short and sweet. He’d deliver it with a brisk authority, though he was perceptive enough to know that it wouldn’t serve him well if he sounded as if he were making demands. U.S. marshals were as a rule proud, even prickly sorts. If he had to talk taffy to get what he needed, he was prepared to do that, too. The only thing that mattered, he reminded himself, was seeing Schell back behind bars.
But when Charlie walked into the office, he immediately discovered that all his preparations had been unnecessary. Seated behind the desk was Deputy U.S. Marshal Jim Collins, the very man who had been present with him at Chieke Bay to make the arrests.
Was wondering if I’d ever be seeing you again, the old lawman said with a friendly grin as he shook Charlie’s hand.
Gotta say, didn’t expect you here, Charlie replied, silently congratulating himself on this bit of luck. In the course of the Treadwell case, he’d earned the marshal’s respect. He knew he could count on his cooperation in the hunt for Schell.