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262 CASSIAR

them agree exactly as to what happened. Some say that
Reed, after being threatened by “ Soapy,”’ pulled the trigger
of his revolver, with which he was armed, as “ Soapy”
was throwing up his rifle, and that he would have been
uninjured if his weapon had not missed fire. Others say
that when ‘“‘ Soapy”’ accosted Reed his Winchester rifle
was lying across his arm and that he twisted his body
round and fired, with the rifle still in the same position,
without warning, as soon as Reed refused to allow him
to pass. However, it appears that Reed, whether his
revolver missed fire or not, was actually hit and mortally
wounded first, and also that he was lying on the ground
when the bullet from his weapon found ‘“‘ Soapy’s ” heart,

After “‘Soapy’s”’ death the rest of his gang immediately
wilted and fled to the mountains, whence they were
rounded up and given their choice of leaving the country
within a fixed time or being hanged. They chose to
leave !

After that Skagway had peace and prosperity for several
years, but now indeed it has fallen on evil days, and all
it has left is a memory of the past.

From Skagway it is necessary to make a railway journey
of four anda halfhours. Asan engineering feat the railway
is marvellous. The line follows the old trail that the
thousands of gold seekers took on their way into Dawson
at the time of the Klondyke excitement. Up and up it
takes you, with two engines puffing and blowing and
barely able to do more than crawl along, over canyons
and gulches and roaring glacier-fed creeks, sometimes
skirting a terribly precipitous hillside with an almost
sheer descent of a thousand feet or more awaiting you
should a trestle break or the track give way ; sometimes
making switchbacks in order to ascend an otherwise
impossible grade, until at last it carries you away above
timber line to the summit of the Coast Range, where you
again enter British territory.

After the summit is passed you gradually descend
through a series of glorious, snow-clad mountains to Lake
Bennet, whose shores are followed closely until you pass