Both were
isolated trading-posts, Sixty Mile and Fort Selkirk. In the
summer-time Indians might be met with at the mouths of the
Stewart and White rivers, at the Big and Little Salmons, and on
Lake Le Barge; but in the winter, as he well knew, they would be
on the trail of the moose-herds, following them back into the
mountains.
That night, camped at the mouth of the Klondike, Daylight did not
turn in when the evening's work was done. Had a white man been
present, Daylight would have remarked that he felt his "hunch"
working. As it was, he tied on his snowshoes, left the dogs
curled in the snow and Kama breathing heavily under his rabbit
skins, and climbed up to the big flat above the high earth-bank.
But the spruce trees were too thick for an outlook, and he
threaded his way across the flat and up the first steep slopes of
the mountain at the back. Here, flowing in from the east at
right angles, he could see the Klondike, and, bending grandly
from the south, the Yukon. To the left, and downstream, toward
Moosehide Mountain, the huge splash of white, from which it took
its name, showing clearly in the starlight. Lieutenant Schwatka
had given it its name, but he, Daylight, had first seen it long
before that intrepid explorer had crossed the Chilcoot and rafted
down the Yukon.
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