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Show Seeks Riches of Klondike Miner The woman and child Joined Car-mack Car-mack on Bonanza and .the woman helped him as he gleaned his gold, and helped him carry it to the safe at Healy's trading post. He "came out" in the fall of 1S98 with between $200,000 and $300,000 of gold. He brought the woman and child along to Seattle and from Seattle Seat-tle went to Holllster, Cal., where the three lived with his sister, Mrs. Rose Curtis. In the spring of 1899 Carmack returned re-turned to the Klondike, leaving the woman and child at the home of his sister. In June at Dawson City he met Mrs. Marguerite Laimee. She was a large woman, handsome, according ac-cording to Yukon standards, and was admired by the men who came from the diggings eager to lavish their gold for the refinements of civilization which Dawson City offered. She sold them cigars and tobacco and it may well be believed, as she says, that they were lavish in payment, spilling their dust on the counter and not bothering to brush it back Into their pouches. She mentions this detail of her business busi-ness career at Dawson by way of offsetting off-setting the claim that her present affluence af-fluence was derived altogether from Carmack. The two came out together In 1900 and went to San Francisco. Carmack wrote to his sister from there that he had lost hi i affection for Kate and would not have anything more to do with her. Kate sued for divorce, hut withdrew the action when she learned that Carmack and Marguerite Laimee had been married at Olympla In October, Octo-ber, 1900, and sued for separate maintenance. main-tenance. Nothing seems to have come of this litigation. Daughter of George W. Carmack by Tribal Marriage Fights for His Wealth. St. Louis. When George Washington Washing-ton Carmack, trapper, packer, prospector pros-pector and adventurer, discovered the Klondike, Kate Mason, Taglsh squaw, known as Mrs. Carmack, was the sharer of his joys and sorrows. She went trapping with him, packing pack-ing their belongings on hei back. She toiled by his side as a burden bearer. She lived with him in cabin and tent and on the trail. It was pot luck with them. Sometimes they had enough to eat, sometimes not. The child she bore him for a sharer of their hardships and privations. The day in 1890 when Carmack, prospecting pros-pecting up Rabbit creek and down Bonanza creek, found gold, the woman wom-an and child were waiting for him at the mouth of the Klondike. When fortune made the pathfinder forgetful of the past he put away the Indian mother of his child and espoused es-poused a woman of his own race. Carmack is dead and the Taglsh woman is dead. But the child of the white man and squaw is fighting today for the good name of her mother and for a daughter's share in the Klon-diker's. Klon-diker's. estate. The question which the courts of Washington state are called upon to answer is whether there was a ceremony cere-mony which made Kate Mason, daughter daugh-ter of a former chief of the Taglsh tribe, the wife of the white man. Proof of a ceremony Is lacking. Estate Valued at $500,000. There Is no lack of proof that the Indian woman, with Carmack's full cognizance, was recognized as hia wife, and that he acknowledged himself him-self as the father of her child, but In after years he swore that she had never been anything but his "klootch." Besides the good name of her mother, moth-er, Mrs. Graphie Carmack Saftig, the daughter, stands to win all of the estate, es-tate, valued at one-half million dollars. dol-lars. If the courts decide that Carmack Car-mack was married to the Indian woman, wom-an, Mrs. Sattlg will be the only heir. Failing to establish a ceremonial marriage, mar-riage, Mrs. Saftig may still win half of the estate. Carmack, born In California, was twenty-five years old, when in 18S5, he started to the Yukon over the Dyea trail. The following spring he established es-tablished the Kealy trading post at Dyea. It was there that he met Knee Mason. She was twenty and pretty. There was no young white woman In all that region to be the wife of the trading post man. So It was quite the natural thing, the mating of George Carmack and Kate Mason. Of the marriage ceremony, If there was one, there Is no record, and no living witness has been found. Discovered the Klondike. In the fall of 1892 he went to Fort Selkirk. n the dead of winter, January Jan-uary 11, 189.'!, the child was born. When Carmack, with Taglsh Charley and Skookum Jim, brothers of the woman, as companions, went prospecting, prospect-ing, he left the woman and child where I they could have shelter ami the meager comforts which native village or trading posts afforded. Carmack spent the early part of the summer of 1893 salmon fishing at the mouth of the Klondike. In August he and Skookum Jim went prospecting up the north bank as far as Dominion river. On Bonanza creek, beside an old birch tree, on tho edge of the rim rock, he found a sprinkling of gold, washed there by the running water. And that was the discovery of what came to he known ns "the Klondike." They staked their claims, one for Cnrmnck, one for Skookum Jim and one for Taglsh Clmrloy. |