Page:The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses.djvu/37



"We were just like a great big family, and every man had his squaw, And we lived such a wild, free, fearless life beyond the pale of the law; Till sudden there came a whisper, and it maddened us every man, And I got in on Bonanza before the big rush began.

"Oh, those Dawson days, and the sin and the blaze, and the town all open wide! (If God made me in His likeness, sure He let the devil inside.) But we all were mad, both the good and the bad, and as for the women, well— No spot on the map in so short a space has hustled more souls to hell.

"Money was just like dirt there, easy to get and to spend. I was all caked in on a dance-hall jade, but she shook me in the end.