Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska

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Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, by

Charles Warren Stoddard This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska
Author: Charles Warren Stoddard
Release Date: October 3, 2007 [EBook #22871]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska
BY
CHARLES WARREN STODDARD
Third Edition
ST. LOUIS, MO., 1914
Published by B. HERDER 17 South Broadway
FREIBURG (BADEN) Germany
LONDON, W. C. 68 Great Russell Str.

Copyright, 1899, by Joseph Gummersbach.
--BECKTOLD-- PRINTING AND BOOK MFG. CO. ST. LOUIS, MO.

To KENNETH O'CONNOR, First-District-of-Columbia Volunteers, Gen'l Shafter's Fifth Army Corps, Santiago de Cuba: IN MEMORY OF OUR HOME-LIFE IN THE BUNGALOW.

NOTE.
The Author returns thanks to the Editor of the Ave Maria for the privilege of republishing these notes of travel and adventure.

CONTENTS.
Chapter. Page. I. Due West to Denver 7 II. In Denver Town 18 III. The Garden of the Gods 29 IV. A Whirl across the Rockies 40 V. Off for Alaska 47 VI. In the Inland Sea 56 VII. Alaskan Village Life 66 VIII. Juneau 74 IX. By Solitary Shores 86 X. In Search of the Totem-Pole 98 XI. In the Sea of Ice 111 XII. Alaska's Capital 124 XIII. Katalan's Rock 136 XIV. From the Far North 148 XV. Out of the Arctic 159
CHAPTER I.
Due West to Denver.
Commencement week at Notre Dame ended in a blaze of glory. Multitudes of guests who had been camping for a night or two in the recitation rooms--our temporary dormitories--gave themselves up to the boyish delights of school-life, and set numerous examples which the students were only too glad to follow. The boat race on the lake was a picture; the champion baseball match, a companion piece; but the highly decorated prize scholars, glittering with gold and silver medals, and badges of satin and bullion; the bevies of beautiful girls who for once--once only in the year--were given the liberty of the lawns, the campus, and the winding forest ways, that make of Notre Dame an elysium in summer; the frequent and inspiring blasts of the University Band, and the general joy that filled every heart to overflowing, rendered the last day of the scholastic year romantic to a degree and memorable forever.
There was no sleep during the closing night--not one solitary wink; all laws were dead-letters--alas that they should so soon arise again from the dead!--and when the wreath of stars that crowns the golden statue of Our Lady on the high dome, two hundred feet in air, and the wide-sweeping crescent under her shining feet, burst suddenly into flame, and shed a lustre that was welcomed for miles and miles over the plains of Indiana--then, I assure you, we were all so deeply touched that we knew not whether to laugh or to weep, and I shall not tell you which we did. The moon was very full that night, and I didn't blame it!
But the picnic really began at the foot of the great stairway in front of the dear old University next morning. Five hundred possible presidents were to be distributed broadcast over the continent; five hundred sons and heirs to be returned with thanks to the yearning bosoms of their respective families. The floodgates of the trunk-rooms were thrown open, and a stream of Saratogas went thundering to the station at South Bend, two miles away. Hour after hour, and indeed for several days, huge trucks and express wagons plied to and fro, groaning under the burden of well-checked luggage. It is astonishing to behold how big a trunk a mere boy may claim for his very own; but it must be remembered that your schoolboy lives for several years within the brass-bound confines of a Saratoga. It is his bureau, his wardrobe, his private library, his museum and toy shop, the receptacle of all that is near and dear to him; it is, in brief, his sanctum sanctorum, the one inviolate spot in his whole scholastic career of which he, and he alone, holds the key.
We came down with the tide in the rear of the trunk freshet. The way being more or less clear, navigation was declared open. The next moment saw a procession of chariots, semi-circus wagons and barouches filled with homeward-bound schoolboys and their escorts, dashing at a brisk trot toward the railroad station. Banners were flying, shouts rent the air; familiar forms in cassock and biretta waved benedictions from all points of the compass; while the gladness and the sadness of the hour were perpetuated by the aid