One day in August, with a large pack, and followed by an unattractive but devoted-looking dog, there came into Council F——, whom we had known on the Lane. He was only twenty-two years old, but financial stress had compelled him to leave his university prematurely; and he had been among the first to cross the Chilkoot Pass and undergo the rigors of the Klondike. Late in the season of 1899 he had come from the Klondike to Nome, and had acquired, as he believed, some valuable interests there, which he had been obliged to intrust to a partner, as he was carried out from Nome in the fall more dead than alive with typhoid. Returning the next year, he learned that his partner had robbed him, and that all that remained was this dog. So, with his pack and his dog, and the aid of a compass, he had walked over the mountains and tundra from Nome to Council,—sleeping, of course, in the open air and upon the ground,—in quest of employment on one of the Wild Goose properties, "No. 15 on Ophir." And he was rather a delicate-looking fellow. He dined with us, and we extended to him the hospitality of our kitchen floor for the night, for which he was very grateful. Notwithstanding his continued ill fortune, F—— seemed to be in first-rate spirits. He recited a verse which he had composed, after "Break, break, break," etc., which began thus:
"Break, broke, bust, on the ruby sands of Nome,
Break, broke, bust—three thousand miles from home!"
The way he got it off caused general laughter. He endured for two weeks work which very few strong men can keep up, working on the ten-hour night shift shoveling frozen ground up and into a sluice-box; and then, pretty well used up, but with enough money to take him home, he departed for Nome, this time by way of the river, saying that he hoped to return next spring. Certainly pluck was not lacking in his make-up.
There is no game in this country to speak of. Occasionally, however, one would scare up a covey of ptarmigan or white grouse, and of course there were fish in the stream. The government recently imported into northern Alaska some reindeer with Laplanders to care for them, and there are scattered reindeer-stations. But none of these animals were seen.
Very pretty wild flowers, many of which I had never seen before, grow out of the tundra. I have gathered as many as ten different species within a quarter of a mile of our camp. In places blue-berries grew thick, and salmon-berries were numerous.
Once in a while a letter of comparatively ancient date, passed on from Nome to some traveler, would reach us—a great treat indeed. Toward the end of August we learned the result of the Yale-Harvard race, which had been rowed the end of June. Miners would come around and ask for the loan of a paper or novel—any old thing would do.
Soon after we had become settled at Council, with intermittent fair weather, it rained almost daily, the rain coming up and clearing off suddenly; and one soon grew accustomed to the peculiarities of the climate. It was a great relief to have the nights begin to darken. After the middle of August they became quite dark, and, at the same time, we not infrequently found in the morning a layer of thin ice in the buckets of water.
On August 25 T—— left us, having received bad news from home; and September 1, to the regret of all, the military departed, as the arrival of the commissioner for the Council City district was daily expected, and presumably there would be no further need of the soldiers. A petition, addressed to the general commanding, seeking the retention of the military throughout the winter, was gotten up and freely signed, but fear of the friction which, under such circumstances, is likely to exist between the civil and military authorities, rendered it of no avail. About September 1, a heavy storm with a driving rain set in, which continued with no moderation until the 8th of the month. Dams were washed away, and mining operations ceased. It seemed at times impossible that the tents could stand up against the wind, or that the canvas could longer keep out the heavy rain. The "boulevards" of Council were in a very sorry condition. It was very dismal comfort those days. The Neukluk had become a young Mississippi, and the bar of the stream was now entirely covered. The wind blew furiously up the stream; and it was almost an unbelievable sight to behold one day a freighter sailing slowly and surely, impelled alone by the favoring wind, up the stream and over that riffle which hitherto had been the heartbreaker.