Down the Yukon Read Free Page A

an ecstasy of comfort. Ethan chuckled softly.
    â€œThe news is garbled only because it was conveyed by a series of dog teams,” I maintained. “People retold it along the way. By all accounts it happened last fall. Three lucky Swedes, they say. Gold in the beach sand and nuggets in the creeks. I believe it.”
    Abe pulled at his mustache. “For argument’s sake, let’s suppose that it’s true. If Nome affects us it will only be to draw off some of these men milling up and down Front Street looking for excitement.”
    Ethan was irked. “There’s not enough work to go around. You know that, Abraham. Anyway, who’s to blame those men for living for today? I agree with them—worry about tomorrow when it comes.”
    Through the window, I could see our crew approaching the gate. I gulped a last swallow of coffee, glanced at my brothers, and stole the line that was usually Abe’s: “Let’s make some lumber, gentlemen.”

THREE
    Ethan may have been itching to join the excitement of Front Street, but so far the Hawthorn brothers knew merely secondhand of Dawson’s celebrated goings-on. We were busy making lumber. We’d hear and read about the personalities—the kings of the Klondike like Big Alex McDonald and Swiftwater Bill Gates; the lucky owners of tiny fractional claims like whip-cracking Dick Lowe; famous gamblers like Silent Sam Bonnifield and Louis Golden; and the dance-hall queens like Cad Wilson and Diamond Tooth Gertie.
    Buckskin Frank Leslie was said to be in town, a famous gunman from frontier days, and so was Calamity Jane, whose name was linked to Wild Bill Hickok and Deadwood, South Dakota. Arizona Charlie Meadows of the Palace Grand was a former cavalry scout who was said to have once fought hand-to-hand with Geronimo. Jack Dalton was celebrated in Dawson for blazing hisown trail from tidewater to the Yukon below Five Fingers Rapids. Driving two thousand cattle this far north, to a town desperate for anything other than bacon and beans and flapjacks, was a near-impossible and instantly legendary feat.
    I’d heard hundreds of nicknames, like Limejoice Lil, Spanish Dolores, Deep-Hole Johnson, Two-Step Louie, Hamgrease Jimmy, and the Evaporated Kid. Sometimes I’d heard the story behind the name. Spare-rib Jimmy Mackinson was so thin that his landlady wouldn’t let him sleep in her sheets for fear he’d tear them with his ribs. Waterfront Brown was the name of the infamous bill collector who haunted the riverfront during the summer season. That’s when people running off on their debts were likely to try to board the steamboats.
    Dawson was a town that loved its personalities so much, it manufactured new ones overnight. Little did we know that the next would be one of the Hawthorn brothers. When an article under the headline GRUDGE MATCH appeared in the Klondike Nugget three days after Ethan’s incident with the Sydney Mauler, we were taken by surprise.
    â€œâ€˜A new heavyweight opponent for Henry Brackett, known as the Sydney Mauler, looms large,’” I read aloud. My voice was short of breath.
    â€œGo on,” Ethan said, poking at the mill ends firing our small Yukon stove. It was an especially cold morning, with frost still clinging to the windows despite our fire.
    â€œâ€˜The opponent’s name, as dubbed by Brackett, is “Lucky Ethan” Hawthorn. All of Dawson is talking about the fight.’”
    Abe frowned. “It wasn’t before, but I’m sure it will be now.”
    â€œGo on,” Ethan urged, his impish green eyes sparkling. “Keep reading.”
    â€œâ€˜Little did a local man know Saturday afternoon that in his street brawl in defense of one of Dawson’s innumerable homeless canines, he had bested the pride of Sydney, Australia, whom two great heavyweight champions of the world, John L. Sullivan and Gentleman Jim Corbett, have dodged in trepidation of