And when I think of this my blood boils, for Bera, after she had the $500 in bills wrapped in a piece of paper and sealed up in an envelope addressed to me, met Swiftwater on the street in Nome and he took the money away from her, saying:
“Bera, I’ll mail that letter to your mother.”
Of course, I never got the money because Swiftwater gambled it away, and I laying awake nights crying and unable to sleep because of my worry, and working hard throughout the long winter days to support Swiftwater’s child.
So it came about that we boarded the big river steamer Susie for Nome. Her decks were jammed with people eager to get outside or anxious to try their fortunes in the new Seward Peninsula gold fields or the beach diggings at Nome. The Yukon was clear of ice, wide, deep and beautiful to look upon in summer, though in winter, when the ice is packed up one hundred feet high, it carries the death dealing blizzards that bring an untimely fate to many a hardy traveler.
In Nome I found no further news of Swiftwater nor Bera and waited there for three weeks. Then, after days of watching at the postoffice, I got a letter from Swiftwater, saying that it would not be possible for him to come to Nome, and there was not even so much as a dollar bill in the letter.
Disheartened and miserable, I turned to go back to my hotel. As I turned from the postoffice a news-boy rushed up from the wharf, crying out:
“SEATTLE TIMES—ALL ABOUT SWIFTWATER BILL RUNNING AWAY WITH ANOTHER WOMAN.”