By the way, "Uncle S.," the Quaker gold-hunter whom we had given up for lost last winter, came aboard the "Penelope" when we first anchored at Anvil City. He has bought a small steam launch and makes money ferrying people and their goods up and down the coast. The Snake River is not navigable except after heavy rains. I have also seen the "Flying Dutchman" here. He is gray. He had black hair and beard last fall. His forced journeyings over the frozen Arctic have left a witness to his hardships. The "Bear" came in last night from Kotzebue Sound, bringing eighty victims of scurvy. The sickness up there has been awful this spring and the death rate as high as ten per cent.
We hear of a great many disasters. There are but few who would spend another winter on the Kowak for a mint of gold, unless it be myself. To crown it all, we have news of a strike on the Kowak! "Nuggets as big as hickory nuts!" This story, when we are scarcely four hundred miles away from there! Somebody is starting another boom. This may start some more "fools" up there. But it will take something new to get any of us back. We have bit at "the hickory nut" once, and I do not think we shall again. We hear that the transportation companies are booming this country. It is overrun now and there is sure to be crowding. Wages are five to eight dollars a day back at the mines, but only a limited number of men can get employment at that. Expenses are high, and a man had better stick to $1.50 per day back in civilization than to come here and sleep on the damp ground in a tent without a fire and live on salt-horse and beans.
The hot weather is upon us at last and the last four days have been "sweaters." It is like an oven in the tent where I am writing. Dr. Coffin got us each a box of lemons and oranges on the "Alaska," just in, before he left. Jesse just brought in a big stew kettle full of ice-cold lemonade. Two bowls full just serve to make one want more. It tastes so good. We have had one mess of fresh potatoes and onions. We ate the latter raw with vinegar. It does a fellow good to be without such things a while, if not too long. He knows better how to appreciate them.
And now I record a fact that ought to make every face blush that turns an upward glance at Old Glory. The United States has passed "a law," permitting; saloons in Cape Nome. The natives get all they want and are killing each other when drunk. The native girl who mends some of our shoes, came in drunk, and when sober she was asked where she obtained the liquor. She gave the name of the man. Our foreman told him that he would report him to the captain of our squad, and was offered $50 by the criminal to "keep mum."
Aug. 5.—It is nothing now but "work" from 7 a. m. to 6 p. m. After ten hours of it one is more ready to rest than to write. I do not get a minute to so much as look at a bird except Sunday, which we have voted to observe. And then there is plenty to till in every minute when one comes along, including mending and washing. But I can scarcely help seeing the birds that fly past along the beach just as if to taunt me. Bands of Pacific kittiwakes pass up and down the surf on the lookout for herrings, and an occasional glaucus, or rather the Port Barrow gull, comes sailing along. A pair of Arctic terns feeding their full-grown young, afford almost the only bird notes of any kind. The young have a pleading, and yet harshly strong, succession of calls, and hover along the beach ever ready for the fish caught in the surf by the parent birds. The precision with which the terns can drop on a tiny fish or crustacean in the boiling surf is remarkable. And yet they seem so light on the wing and rise from the water with so little apparent exertion. Long-tailed jagers are common, coursing back and forth over the tundra or poising against the wind with fluttering wings much like a sparrow-hawk. Their long, pointed, streamer-like, central tail feathers distinguish them at almost any distance from the other jagers. They feed on meadow mice and caterpillars mostly, but their habit of forcing gulls to disgorge is of frequent notice. As there are no mud flats or marshes here the waders are scarce. I saw a godwit, probably the Pacific, flying back toward the interior. Several golden plover, which I have no doubt are rearing their young, are always on the back part of our claims. Their melodious, warbling call reminds me strongly of the robin. These plover show decided preference for the dryest tundra and uplands, and at Cape Blossom I found them on the hillsides in the interior of the peninsula. One day last week while I was at work in a prospect hole back of the bluff, three turnstones lit in the mossy hummocks within a few yards of me. They were very tame and remained an hour or more near me, feeding on insects or their larvæ. I have never taken this species (the common turnstone), although I saw it at Cape Prince of Wales and Cape Blossom, and tried hard to get some specimens. I took several of the black turnstones in Sitka in 1896, and also in San Clemente Island last year. Black-throated loons are numerous and are constantly seen and heard overhead as they fly back and forth from the lakes on the tundra to their feeding grounds out at sea. This is the only loon I have seen here, although I saw the red-throated at Kotzebue. I kept special watch for the yellow-billed loon which is ascribed to this region, but have never identified it. The Eskimos make clothing of loon skins, and I have particularly examined such evidences, but have never found a scrap of yellow-billed loon skin. This species cannot therefore be very numerous. Land birds are very scarce here, probably on account of the awful barrenness of the region. I flushed one snowy owl back of camp one day, and the boys say they saw a hawk of some kind yesterday, I think from their description a gyrfalcon. I saw two juvenile Lapland longspurs yesterday feeding about the bluff, and also heard a yellow wagtail. I have noted a pair of juvenile redpolls several times along the bluff.
This, I think, comprises our avifauna up to date, and it will be seen that a collector would have rather "slim picking." They tell me that back in the hills where the ravines are lined with willow scrubs, birds are more numerous and that large flocks of juvenile ptarmigan are appearing. I would like to go back and see if this is true, but it is all "business" now. The financial prospects of our party are brightening every day. Our beach claims may become a paying proposition when properly developed. Eight or ten of us are working on one of them in a very crude fashion, using "rockers." and are taking out $50 to $60 per day. With improved machinery this would be a rich thing, but of course considerable capital would be required to start. I am "cleaner-up;" taking out the previous day's clean-up, which consists of several pans of mixed black sand and gold dust (the latter in smallest proportion), and panning it down so far as I can without losing any colors or fine flakes of the yellow. Then I mix in mercury thoroughly, which takes up all the dust, forming an amalgam, which is finally separated and retorted, leaving the buttons of pure gold. We are figuring on another proposition and may not continue at this much longer. We have prospected these claims enough to know their value, and this is enough for this year. There is a good deal of trouble about the strip of beach between high and low tide, some claiming it to be public reserve and open to be worked by anyone. Several "squatters" are working on our claims who refuse to get off, but the judge will settle this next week.
CHAPTER XXIV.
C
CAPE NOME, Alaska, Aug. 6, 1899.—It is Sunday evening again and I am reclining against my roll of blankets in the warm tent. Foote is playing the banjo, beautiful music, too! I never appreciated music until this trip. Foote's marches and familiar songs, associated as they are with the freedom of camp life and that feeling of rest after a day's work, have impressed their memory as the sweetest music I ever heard. We are still on our beach claims; that is, part of us. The "Penelope" is back at anchor, having left Jett and Wilson on the scent of something under guidance of an Indian. Cox has not reported. Our property is advancing in value and so is the stock of the L. B. A. M. & T. Co. The same stock which I was ready to trade a few weeks ago for some cotton batting, arsenic and plaster-of-paris! We own a lot in Anvil City 200 × 300 feet. The beach claims are proving better. If we can hold clear to the water line we are safe. The past week we have taken out $250 in gold dust. Trouble with jumpers continues. Over six hundred men are working with rockers on the beach in sight. Some are making from $50 to $150 per day. One fellow struck a pocket and took out $400 at one clean-up. Our claims are not as good as those nearer Snake River. Several jumpers are at work on them now and we cannot put them off except by force, and that means fight. None of us want to be disfigured after our successful encounter with the frost last winter. We appealed to the lieutenant in charge, but he says he can do nothing until the arrival of the district judge next week. Several of our boys have gone up to one of the rich gulches to consider a new proposition. Maybe we will get a good lay. A "lay" is a lease given by a claim owner to a party to work a claim for a certain per-centage of the outcome.
Aug. 13.—Another week has passed away and very quickly, too, in spite of the hard work. From six to twelve of us are still working on one of the beach claims. Up to Friday night we had taken out $750 in dust. If the whole company were working at the same rate this would be good wages, but there are twenty to share with. The "Penelope" has gone down the coast again to look after the prospectors and may bring good news. Jesse Farrar, the cook, went to town last night, and I have been cooking to-day. We were troubled quite a little at first by our numerous Kotzebue friends dropping in for meals on their way up and down the beach. So we put up a sign, "Meals, $1," more to rid ourselves of the extra care than to go into the restaurant business. Really it became unbearable.