Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

THE YUKON ADVENTURE 181after being honoured was not retained by the dispenser ofthe beverage. In spite of this munificence, however, anillusion had been shattered, for "Swiftwater Bill" was asmeek-looking an individual as ever sold ribbon.One very sweltering day in June, 1898, a fat, highly rougedand gaudily bedecked damsel, of no tender years, enquired atthe scales, of the only two members of the original Dawson staffwho are still in the bank's service, "Have you got my tightsand slippers I'm Caprice?" Without a quaver she wasreferred to the gentleman at the other end of the counter, themanager. It is said that the manager's face was a study indignity as he told her that she was in a bank. "Sure," saidCaprice, "The Bank of Commerce, isn't it? Joe Brooks toldme he'd send them here." Joe Brooks was a packer on theSkagway trail, and after a search it was discovered that thebank did have her tights and slippers in a parcel. A weekor so later these were seen in all their glory. Sunday sacred (?)concerts had been instituted, on the police closing the dancehalls for that day. Living pictures were then quite the thing.Before the curtain rose on a certain picture, a placardannounced the title of a well-known hymn, and then amid adelighted hum of recognition from the audience of "GoodLord, it's Caprice," this stout damsel was seen, in the pinktights and slippers, clinging to a huge cross. "Pygmalion andGalatea," as rendered by a Dawson stock company, with astuffed malamute dog to represent a fawn, was only one morediverting incident in a life that then teemed with the amusing.During the first summer, however, there was little butwork for the small staff of the bank. Later on in the season thebank moved into its new premises, equipped with three safeshaving special contrivances attached to the locks to providefor certain contingencies in this out-of-the-world place, andwith rooms for the staff (the windows without window panes,however). With these, and with their own mess, the men consideredthemselves in clover, as well they might after "piggingit" in a dark loft for over two months and obtaining most indif-