Page:The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses.djvu/36



And that gruesome scar on my left cheek, where the frost-fiend bit to the bone. Each one a brand of this devil's land, where I've played and I've lost the game, A broken wreck with a craze for 'hooch,' and never a cent to my name.

"This mining is only a gamble; the worst is as good as the best; I was in with the bunch and I might have come out right on top with the rest; With Cormack, Ladue and Macdonald—O God! but it's hell to think Of the thousands and thousands I've squandered on cards and women and drink.

"In the early days we were just a few, and we hunted and fished around, Nor dreamt by our lonely camp-fires of the wealth that lay under the ground. We traded in skins and whiskey, and I've often slept under the shade Of that lone birch tree on Bonanza, where the first big find was made.