At last, when the season was drawing to a close—news!
Not that expected—but something no man had looked for.
Gold had been discovered in the sands of the Nome beach.
Men who had been stranded there—arriving too late for a claim on the creeks—a broken and ragged horde, were now persons of substance and of cheerful occupation, that of “rocking out” fifty to a hundred dollars a day upon the beach at Nome. The gold was not here alone, but under the moss and the coarse grass of the tundra. It clung to the roots when you pulled up the sedgy growths. It was everywhere. What was the contracted little valley of the Klondike compared to this!
“The greatest of all the new world gold-fields has been found. A region, vaster than half a dozen Eastern States, sown broadcast with gold-dust and nuggets. Easy to reach and easy to work.”
Here was the poor man’s country. If you didn’t want to rock out a fortune for yourself, you could earn fifteen dollars a day working for others.
“The beach for miles is lined with miners’ tents. Anvil City (hereafter to be called Nome) is booming.
“Building lots that six months ago were worth nothing, to-day bring thousands of dollars.
“Where a year ago was only a bare, wind-swept beach on Bering Sea—one of the most desolate places to be found on earth and beside which the Yukon country has a fine climate—there is to-day a city of several thousand people, surrounded by the richest placer-diggings the world has seen.”
The gold-laden miners returning to Seattle by the last boats of the autumn, told the reporters with a single voice, “The world has known nothing like Cape Nome.”