The Man Who Found Gold on the McMillan

One of the most interesting story-tellers who arrived here on the steamer 'Statute City' this morning is C.P. Osborne, at San Francisco. He was in the north for about 1 month, and visited nearly every mining camp in the Yukon country. Mr. Osborne left Dawson on June 1, and is one of the last men out from the gold fields.

He has a remarkable story to tell of a trip which he made recently, 50 miles up the McMillan river, when, he claims, he struck placer around which will yield him a fortune. He also fell in with a party of Edmonton route victims, who went down the Mackenzie river over a year and, striking the Peel river, had by the hardest kind of work finally reached the headwaters of the McMillan.

The poor fellows were, Mr. Osborne says, physical wrecks, and were on the verge of starvation when he met them. They had passed through awful hardships, had been held up by hostile Indians for their outfits and provisions, and had lost several of their companions by sickness.

'The northern country,' said Mr. Osborne to a Star reporter, 'is alright. There is some cold at the headwaters of the McMillan river to make a small army of determined men rich. It is terrible country to get into. I have been nearly two months to arrive here, and 140 days' travel up the river. My partner, in the Bunker Hill of Seattle, struck the rich ground by chance, and we worked it until our provisions nearly gave out. There was gold everywhere in that vicinity, and we cleaned up nearly $5,000 before we were compelled to come out. The diggings are shallow and it is an easy matter to reach bed-rock. The dirt, as a rule, runs about $1 to the pan.'

'When we return to Dawson the people would look at us that we had struck it rich on the McMillan, as so many who came to that country failed to find anything. The trouble was they did not go far enough up stream. On account of the many difficulties encountered, there will undoubtedly be a big rush there this summer. I confidently expect to see it turn out a second Klondike.'

After spending a few weeks in San Francisco I will return to the McMillan with a party.

'All the time we were in that country we met only half a dozen people. They were the most wretched looking men I ever saw in my life. Their clothes were in rags, and they were almost skeletons. One party left Edmonton over a year ago and had wintered on the Peel river. They had been unable to get much firewood, and had suffered terribly from the intestinal colic. Three died from hunger and starvation. Early this year they made a move south, coming down the Peel on the ice. The leader, a man by the name of Jackson, from New Jersey, said that they had been held up by Indians and robbed of most of their provisions and too great part of their outfit. From that time on they lived on fish and a couple of moose from a wilderness camp.