Custom House at Circle City.
In Circle City liquor was freely brought down the river from the British side of the boundary. The first customs inspector was said to have been a notorious rascal, who had not only winked at the bringing in of liquor, but had taken a hand in the trade himself. The present representatives of the government, however, seemed to wish to do their duty, and their watching nights and sleeping days had finally resulted in their trapping the smugglers as they were landing, and they had captured the whisky and had brought it to the customhouse, where the whole camp knew it to be. The whole camp was interested in it, moreover, for it had been whisky-dry; and the feeling towards the officers was probably none of the best in any quarter, although most recognized that they were simply doing their duty. At the enormously high prices which prevailed, these two kegs were worth several thousand dollars, and so were valuable booty. Therefore, a plot had been hatched to recover the liquor, and this plot had come to the officers' ears a few hours before the coup was to have taken place. Hence the caution and warlike preparations which greeted me. The men from whom the whisky had been taken were the leaders in the scheme, and they had also enlisted several miners, among them a gigantic fellow who called himself "Caribou Bill," and whom I had met on the trail to the diggings. Bill gave the thing away by going to a saloon-keeper and trying to borrow a second revolver—he already had one. On being questioned as to why he wanted it, he took the saloon-keeper into his confidence. The saloon-keeper told a friend of his, who being also a friend of one of the customs officers, cautioned him.
Both of the officers advised me to go elsewhere till the trouble was over, but reflecting that I was their guest and so under obligations to them, and also that I was an officer of Uncle Sam, and was in duty bound to "uphold the government of the United States by land and sea, against foreign and domestic enemies" as had been specified in my oath of office, I decided to remain with them. Ross hunted up two of his old friends among the miners and told them he proposed to resist the attack till the last, and that if there should be any bloodshed he hoped the camp would treat him fairly, considering that he had simply been doing his duty. The miners offered to stay with us and help in the resistance, but as we knew their hearts were hardly in their offer of loyalty, we refused to let them stay. One of them, however, loaned his rifle to Wendling; and as he went to get it, a couple of forms behind the house jumped up and ran away. The other miner, who had also gone out for a moment, returned with the news that he had seen four men skulking behind the bank which lay in front of the house.
The plan of the smugglers and their friends, as Ross had learned it, was to come to the door of the cabin and knock. When the officer went to the door to open it, he would be covered with a revolver, and the second officer with another, and the whisky would be rolled out and over the bank into a boat which would convey it up the river into a new hiding-place. If the officers resisted they would be shot and the whisky taken just the same. The plan we determined upon was to leave the door unlocked, so that when the expected knock should come we would not have to go to the door to open it, but would call out "Come in" without stirring. I had my post on a box near the wall directly opposite the door, while Ross sat in the darkness close by the window, so that when the knocker should enter he would find the muzzles of repeating rifles levelled at him from two opposite directions, and be invited to drop his fire-arms and surrender. Wendling was in the other room watching the second door and window, but we did not expect the attack to be made there, since the smugglers must know very well that the whisky was in the officers' living-room, where we were.
Directly after we had taken our places a man came and stood twenty yards in front of the cabin in the dusk, and beckoned. Ross went out to him, and a long talk ensued, which ended by the officer returning. He said that the man had told him that we were three against many, and that they were bound to get the whisky anyway, since it was theirs and they would fight for it; so if Ross would simply yield without fighting it would save us. At the same time they would be willing to pay him a nice little sum as a plaster wherewith to heal his wounded dignity. Ross had replied that they had mistaken their man; whereupon he was informed that he must take the consequences. So he returned, and we waited with tense nerves, in momentary expectation of an attack, our eyes strained, our fingers on the triggers of our cocked rifles, our ears listening.
After an hour or more had passed, and no sound was heard, the suspense began to grow unbearable. Ross whispered to me, "If them fellers are coming I wish they'd hurry up, and not keep us waiting here all night." Shortly afterwards Wendling, crawling cautiously and silently around in the other room, knocked down from some shelf on the wall a pile of tin pans, which made a terrific rattle and bang; this upset our tightly-drawn nerves so that we laughed convulsively, trying to choke down our merriment so that it could not be heard. Still no noise from the outside, save that once we heard coughing behind the logs at the back of the building. Ross, peering through the window, saw now and then a shadowy form creeping along the bank in front; and Wendling, reconnoitring through the window in the other room, saw other figures passing around back of the house. And still no alarm. Sitting bolt upright on my box, I suddenly caught my head, which was in the act of falling forward—caught it with a jerk which brought my eyes wide open, and at the same time horror filled my soul—I was in danger of falling asleep! This frightened me so that I kept awake easily after that. So we waited till the morning grey brightened in the sky, when finally Ross remarked: "Well, there's no more danger, and I'm tired enough to sleep." We rolled ourselves in our blankets and dropped asleep without a moment's delay, not waking until the day was late and Goodrich and Schrader, just returning from the diggings, pounded on the door and asked for admission and a bite to eat.
Concerning the reasons why the raid was given up, there was much inner history that I never learned. I suspect that the miners who had offered to help us afterwards warned the smugglers, telling them how well we were prepared, and that this kept them from carrying out their plans.
The next night a grand ball was gotten up by the ladies of Circle City, and our bedroom in the customhouse—being one of the largest places available—was selected as the scene of the dance. I was requested to write the announcements of the ball, which I did, and stuck one up on each of the Companies' stores. They ran as follows:
Social Dance.
There will be a Social Dance
given by the ladies of Circle City
Wednesday Eve. Aug. 19th,
At the residence of Mr. George Ross.
The supply of ice cream brought up on the
Arctic being exhausted, there will be
no collation.
No rubber boots allowed on the floor.
Dogs must be tied with ribbons in the anteroom.
After the notices were posted, one of the customs officers came to me in great perturbation concerning the regulation about rubber boots, saying that such a restriction would exclude many desirable and well-meaning gentlemen who would otherwise be able to attend.