Nome seemed very orderly, much improved, and more substantial in general appearance. It had been duly incorporated as a city. About a mile of the principal streets had been boarded over (a great improvement), though at that time, in front of our hotel, the horses sank belly-deep in muck and mud as of yore. The banner sign, "City Morgue," had now assumed more modest proportions; people who had wintered at Nome looked strong and well; and the doctors somewhat plaintively said that the camp had been "disgustingly healthy." The majority of the deaths were those of too venturesome, or poorly equipped, travelers or prospectors who had perished from cold. But the average individual who had spent the winter there had lived very comfortably, with plenty of good things to eat and drink, and I was informed that the place had been very gay "socially." Some were in fine feather, others hopeful, and but few discouraged.
One of the characters then at Nome, known and unmistakable from the Klondike down, was "Mother" Woods, in her sunbonnet, abbreviated skirts, and "mukluks" or native sealskin boots. A woman of middle age, she had participated in almost every gold stampede, enduring as much as a man; and she swore like a trooper. But in the winter she had nursed and cared for the sick and frozen with the greatest tenderness, it was said; in recognition of which a voluntary contribution had been made to enable her to appeal a case which in the court below had gone contrary to her mining interests. I had, of course, heard of "Scotch verdicts"; but during the winter months the Nome public had coined an expression new to me in referring to the "Scotch whisky decisions"; and, without regard to the possible ancestry of the learned court, it was a lamentable fact that its Scotch had been potent in making a rye business of justice.
W—— was heading for Solomon River,—about thirty miles distant on the coast east of Nome,—and, believing that he had a good opportunity to reach it with some friends on the Ruth, a steam-schooner, he gladly pulled out from Nome on the 27th of June, while we wished him the wealth of "King Solomon's mines."
The days passed by; the inhospitable weather continued; and still there was no certainty of getting into Golovin Bay to travel up the streams to Council City. It was becoming a rather serious matter, and it would have been natural for my partner to suppose that I either had been prevented from coming altogether or had been indefinitely delayed by some mishap. I had seen all the people I cared to see, was heartily sick of the town, and the Gold Hill Hotel, thinly partitioned and put up on the cardboard plan, was not running a very effective heating-plant.
One day there shuffled uninvited into the room, a trifle in his cups, a miserable-looking individual who announced that he was "Uncle Billy" and that everybody knew him, and then proceeded to jabber his tale of woe. He didn't explain how or why it had happened, but merely whimpered that he had been "shot to pieces" during the winter. By way of illustration, and to prove this statement, after pointing to one useless arm he went down into his pocket, and pulling out a "poke" (miner's pocket-book), emptied from it a large-sized bullet and a considerable piece of bone, adding, with attempted humor, that it wasn't everybody who carried his bones about with him in that way. It seemed that he was being made to do menial work in the kitchen, whereas he was really a millionaire, to substantiate which this delightful person again resorted to his wardrobe and drew forth a number of crumpled and dirty mining papers. Appearing on the scene soon after I had finished reading in "The Crisis" of "Uncle Billy" (General Sherman), this pitiful result of one battle made an impression by contrast.
The popular saloons and gambling-houses were crowded, but the stakes were low (for mining operations had not yet begun, and "dust" was not coming into camp), and probably half of the attendance was due to the warmth of these places. All the games were going—roulette, vingt-et-un, faro, poker, stud-poker, Klondike, and craps. There was usually a platform in the rear supporting a piano and a phonograph, and serving as a stage from which sirens would torture the popular ballads, whose agony penetrated the street.
I should have enjoyed attending the sessions of the court, but the judge and court staff were then on the high seas, going to hold a short term at St. Michaels, pursuant to law. In a more or less desperate attempt to fill in the tedious waiting-time, A—— and I one evening sought amusement at the "Standard Theater." The entertainment was not calculated to delight delicate sensibilities.
The glorious Fourth was appropriately celebrated by ample decoration with the flag throughout the town and a very creditable parade, which, headed by a company of sturdy regulars from the neighboring military post, was followed by an A1 fire-engine drawn by fine horses, three uniformed hose companies, and a score of lively little school-children. Such are the enterprise and conquering spirit of our people!