Case headed the Rambler for the straggling village. The little motor boat rode the sea valiantly and by mid-afternoon they were safely moored in the lea of a short pier running out from the beach. “Alex, you and Case run out and take in the sights while Ike and I stay by the boat,” Clay said. “We had not ought to leave the Rambler alone with all her valuable cargo. As soon as you get through with your sight-seeing, come back again and give Ike and me a chance. Better take Captain Joe and Teddy Bear with you. They need a walk after their long confinement. The two eagerly obeyed and Alex led Teddy away with Captain Joe at his heels.
An ancient looking prospector who had been sitting on a wharf post and who had been listening to the boys’ conversation with unabashed interest, got up and strolled over to where they were sitting.
“Chekakos, ain’t you?” He questioned laconically. “Young ones, too, at that.”
“We’re young, all right,” Clay admitted with a smile, “but we don’t exactly know what you mean by ‘chekakos.’”
“Old timers’ name for a greenhorn or tenderfoot. I knowed you was greenhorns from the States as soon as I laid eyes on you,” he continued. “Your faces haven’t been painted with lines and scars yet by old North now; then, too, I heard you talk, and that showed you didn’t know the region around the Arctic. You can leave your boat alone with the cabin unlocked at any miner’s camp and nothing will be touched. We hang thieves on mighty slim evidence up here. It’s a worse crime here than killing. Run on and see the town if you want to. No one will bother your boat.”
Clay was convinced by the rugged honesty of the miner’s face.
“Come on, Ike,” he called. “Let’s go and stretch our legs for a while and see what Nome looks like. Slip your automatic in your pocket. One always needs one when they haven’t got it. Hurry up, perhaps we can catch up with the boys. They haven’t been gone long.” But although they hastened their pace, they could not catch sight of Alex and Case. At last they gave up the attempt to find them and turned their attention to the busy scene around them. Everywhere upon little plots of ground heaps of dirt were being reared skyward from holes in which brawny men in their short-sleeves toiled with shovels and hoisting-pails; the whole place looked like a grouping of ant hills.
The boys paused beside several of these holes and watched the steady labor of digging and hoisting. Every man appeared to be working so against time that the boys did not want to butt in with questions. At one hole, however, they found a great giant of a man clad in overalls who was handling a bucket. He greeted them cordially with a demand for the latest news from the States.
“Yes, these claims are rich, but gold ain’t all in life,” he said in answer to Clay’s questions. “I used to figure out if I was only rich I’d be happy, but that thar hole holds a million dollars apiece for me and my partners and I don’t feel happy. Seem like I’d give it all now to think that I’d been kinder to mother and sister when they were alive or had tried to help dear old dad when he was struggling to find clothes and food for us all. Hold on a minute,” he said, as the boys started to bid him good-bye. “I never let a stranger off my claim without a souvenir, so to speak.” He gathered up a miner’s pan almost full of the fresh gravel and taking it down to a little running stream and filling the pan, tipped it up on edge, and gave it a peculiar whirling motion which sent the sand and gravel out over the edge. This was repeated several times and then he extended the pan out for their view. In its bottom lay fine flakes of yellow and resting upon them as upon a bed glistened eight nuggets varying in size from a grain of corn to a small marble. “Take them and you can have them made into scarf pins as a reminder of the trip when you get back home. No, no, thanks. Just take them and run along. I’ve got to get to work.”
Ike eyed the gold with a calculating eye. “I bet that gold’s worth $20.00 he said. Suppose we stop and talk to some of the other men what hoists the buckets. Perhaps they give souvenirs too.”