“Want to know!” exclaimed the other. “Well, you’re most to it now. Civilization is working right this way pretty fast, that is, if you’ve a mind to call it that.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Joe in wonder.
“Mean?” replied the little man. “I mean that there’s sixty thousand people up in this country at this minute, only none of ’em have got quite up to here except me. They’re piling into Nome as fast as the steamers can bring them, and they’re spreading over the country as fast as horse and foot will take them. It’s the biggest rush the Alaska diggings ever saw.”
“Nome!” queried Joe. “Where’s that?”
The little man looked at him a moment. “Oh, I forgot,” he said. “You’ve been away two or three years, and it all happened since then. Nome is about two hundred miles south of this by sea. I’ve just rowed in from there. They found beach diggings there a year ago that were mighty rich, and the whole earth piled up there this spring. You can’t get a foot of ground anywhere down there for fifty miles. It’s all staked. I came in there late last fall and couldn’t get anything then. Got a notion in my head that there was good ground north here and started across tundra in the winter. Froze my feet and had to crawl back on my hands and knees. Started out again this spring with this boat. Paid a hundred dollars for it. Rowed alongshore as far as Cape Prince of Wales. Father-in-law got aboard the boat there, and he’s been sitting in the bow ever since telling me where to row. He directed me here. Father-in-law has been dead these ten years.”
Joe and Harry looked at each other, and the little man noted it and smiled sadly.
“I know,” he said, “it sounds queer. Well, it is queer. Course ’tain’t so, but it seems so. Ain’t nobody there, it’s jest my notion. A man gets queer up in this country if he’s too much alone. I reckon it’s a sign, though, and I’m going to find something good. Now, I’m hungry. Will you eat with me? My name’s Blenship, what’s yourn?”
The boys helped Blenship get his outfit ashore, assured that they had found a friend. He had a pick, two shovels, two regular gold pans, a queer machine something like a baby’s wooden cradle which he called a rocker, and a good quantity of civilized provisions and utensils, besides a camp outfit. The boat was heavily loaded, and it was a wonder to them how he had made the long trip in it in safety. This he could not tell much about. He had simply “followed directions.” He had “sour dough” bread of his own cooking, and it did not take him long to broil some ham in a little spider. Then he invited the boys to fall to with him, and they were not shy about doing it. What if they had just eaten puffin? Real bread and ham! It made them ravenous.
After the meal they told Blenship of their discovery. His eyes glistened at sight of the nuggets, but he did not seem much surprised.