The approach from the sea was easy, if twelve miles of boulder and bog, of swamp and nigger-head, of root and stump, can be called easy under the best of circumstances; but easy it was as compared with what lay beyond and above it.  Nevertheless, many Argonauts had never penetrated even thus far, and of those who had, a considerable proportion had turned back at the giant pit three miles above.  One look at the towering barrier had been enough for them.  The Chilkoot was more than a mountain, more than an obstacle of nature; it was a Presence, a tremendous and a terrifying Personality which overshadowed the minds of men and could neither be ignored at the time nor forgotten later.  No wonder, then, that Sheep Camp, which was a part of the Chilkoot, represented, a sort of acid test; no wonder that those who had moved their outfits thus far were of the breed the Northland loves—­the stout of heart and of body.

Provisions were cached at frequent intervals all the way up from the sea, but in the open meadow beneath the thousand-foot wall an immense supply depot had sprung up.  This pocket in the hills had become an open-air commissary, stocked with every sort of provender and gear.  There were acres of sacks and bundles, of boxes and bales, of lumber and hardware and perishable stuffs, and all day long men came and went in relays.  One relay staggered up and out of the canon and dropped its packs, another picked up the bundles and ascended skyward.  Pound by pound, ton by ton, this vast equipment of supplies went forward, but slowly, oh, so slowly!  And at such effort!  It was indeed fit work for ants, for it arrived nowhere and it never ended.  Antlike, these burden-bearers possessed but one idea—­to fetch and to carry; they traveled back and forth along the trail until they wore it into a bottomless bog, until every rock, every tree, every landmark along it became hatefully familiar and their eyes grew sick from seeing them.

The character of then—­labor and its monotony, even in this short time, had changed the men’s characters—­they had become pack-animals and they deported themselves as such.  All labor-saving devices, all mechanical aids, all short cuts to comfort and to accomplishment, had been left behind; here was the wilderness, primitive, hostile, merciless.  Every foot they moved, every ounce they carried, was at the cost of muscular exertion.  It was only natural that they should take on the color of their surroundings.

Money lost its value a mile above Sheep Camp said became a thing of weight, a thing to carry.  The standard of value was the pound, and men thought in hundredweights or in tons.  Yet there was no relief, no respite, for famine stalked in the Yukon and the Northwest Mounted were on guard, hence these unfortunates were chained to their grub-piles as galley-slaves are shackled to their benches.

Toe to heel, like peons rising from the bowels of a mine, they bent their backs and strained up that riven rock wall.  Blasphemy and pain, high hopes and black despair, hearts overtaxed and eyes blind with fatigue, that was what the Chilkoot stood for.  Permeating the entire atmosphere of the place, so that even the dullest could feel it, was a feverish haste, an apprehensive demand for speed, more speed, to keep ahead of the pressing thousands coming on behind.