round about him Phillips gathered that opinion on the justice of
the measure was about evenly divided; those fortunate men who had
come well provided commended it heartily, those less fortunate
fellows who were sailing close-hauled were equally noisy in their
denunciation of it. The latter could see in this precautionary
ruling nothing except the exercise of a tyrannical power aimed at
their ruin, and in consequence they voiced threats, and promises
of violence the which Phillips put down as mere resentful
mouthings of no actual significance. As for himself, he had never
possessed anything like a thousand dollars at one time, therefore
the problem of acquiring such a prodigious sum in the immediate
future presented appalling difficulties. He had come north to get
rich, only to find that it was necessary to be rich in order to
get north. A fine situation, truly! A ton of provisions would cost
at least five hundred dollars and the expense of transporting it
across summer swamps and tundras, then up and over that mysterious
and forbidding Chilkoot of which he had heard so much, would bring
the total capital required up to impossible proportions. The
prospect was indeed dismaying. Phillips had been ashore less than
an hour, but already he had gained some faint idea of the country
that lay ahead of him; already he had noted the almost absolute
lack of transportation; already he had learned the price of
packers, and as a result he found himself at an impasse.

One thousand dollars and two hundred pounds! It was enough to dash
high hopes. And yet, strangely enough, Phillips was not
discouraged. He was rather surprised at his own rebound after the
first shock; his reasonless optimism vaguely amazed him, until, in
contemplating the matter, he discovered that his thoughts were
running somewhat after this fashion: