He offered to swap flour, however, at the
rate of a cupful of each egg, but Rasmunsen shook his head and hit
the trail. Below the Post he managed to buy frozen horse hide for
the dogs, the horses having been slain by the Chilkat cattle men,
and the scraps and offal preserved by the Indians. He tackled the
hide himself, but the hair worked into the bean sores of his mouth,
and was beyond endurance.
Here at Selkirk he met the forerunners of the hungry exodus of
Dawson, and from there on they crept over the trail, a dismal
throng. "No grub!" was the song they sang. "No grub, and had to
go." "Everybody holding candles for a rise in the spring." "Flour
dollar 'n a half a pound, and no sellers."
"Eggs?" one of them answered. "Dollar apiece, but there ain't
none."
Rasmunsen made a rapid calculation. "Twelve thousand dollars," he
said aloud.
"Hey?" the man asked.
"Nothing," he answered, and MUSHED the dogs along.
When he arrived at Stewart River, seventy from Dawson, five of his
dogs were gone, and the remainder were falling in the traces. He,
also, was in the traces, hauling with what little strength was left
in him. Even then he was barely crawling along ten miles a day.
His cheek-bones and nose, frost-bitten again and again, were turned
bloody-black and hideous.
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